Ten Days
by Engazed
Summary: John is named a missing person. Someone is pointing DI Lestrade in the wrong direction. And as the days pass, John's situation only grows more dire. It seems like the disappearance of his best friend is the only thing that can bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead. Warnings: Graphic Violence/Torture/Rape/Horror
1. Chapter 1: A Misjudgement

**Chapter 1: A Misjudgement  
**

**DAY 1 **

**Wednesday, 16.39 hrs**

'That's the one.'

'You're sure? You spent a spent an awful long time with the emerald cut.'

'Until I saw this one. This is it, this is Mary.'

John tapped the glass with a finger, nervous, impatient, excited. He'd been thinking about this for weeks—months, if he was completely honest with himself—but he never let himself imagine that he would be standing in the jewellers saying something so self-assured as _that's the one_. No, he had instead assumed that something would come up, something bad would happen, break, explode, and he would be toppled from this peak of happiness. But this . . . this was real. It would last. Even though she had declared it eight months ago, the thought that Mary loved him still sent his heart racing, still made him question whether he was actually caught in some beautiful dream from which he would soon be awakened.

The clerk behind the counter at Grant & Chapman's nodded obligingly and extracted the simple round-cut solitaire for John to better examine. John made something of a show of it, holding it up to the light and turning from side to side before his eyes, but his mind was already made up.

'I'll take it.' He licked his lips and grinned up at the man.

'Then it seems congratulations are in order, sir.'

John laughed a little nervously and let out the air he had apparently been holding in. 'Thanks.'

Adjustments to the ring still had to be made before he could pick it up on Friday: resizing, cleaning, and engraving. He wanted the inner band to bear the simple though delightful phrase _John and Mary_. Nothing flowery or overly sentimental—that was how Mary liked it, one of the thousand things he loved about her, one of the thousand ways she was just right for him. It amazed him, sometimes, most times, that she seemed to feel the same about him. Here she was, getting a beaten-down, torn-up ex-soldier, and he, a funny, compassionate, and uncomplicated woman.

Before leaving the shop, he made the first payment on the ring, hoping that Mary didn't go snooping through is credit card statements before Saturday.

He stepped outside and zipped up his coat against the chilly London air. His breath rose in little puffs as he laughed a little to himself, and he revelled in the warmth of being, well, happy. It had been so long since he had felt so content with how his life was going. True, she hadn't exactly said _yes _yet, but to his own surprise, he realised that he was confident she would. As much as he wanted to, however, he couldn't just stand there, basking in so pleasant a realisation. He was due at work. He checked his wristwatch and saw that his shift started soon. He saw a cab round the bend and stepped into the street to hail it.

'St Elizabeth's,' he told the cabbie, just as his phone dinged musically in his pocket.

_Found your toothbrush._  
_It was in the egg caddy _  
_in the fridge. You goon!_  
_x_

John laughed aloud, trying to remember what he must have been doing or thinking for it to have ended up there. And he thought fondly of Mary, who must have laughed when she found it. Her laughter was probably his favourite sound in the world—it was like music.

_You know me. I like to_  
_brush my eggs before_  
_boiling. Shift ends at 6.  
xx_

A few seconds later, she texted back:

_Let's do breakfast._  
_Vivian's Cafe, 6.30.  
xxx_

His thumbs tapped about quickly.

_See you then._  
_How many kisses _  
_are we allowed?_  
_xxxxxx_

John glanced up to see how close he was to the hospital when he saw that they were on an unfamiliar street. He craned his neck around, trying to get his bearings, but he was pretty sure they were in the wrong part of the city. He leaned forward in his seat.

'St E's Hospital, near Kennington Park,' he said.

The cabbie didn't respond.

'Excuse me. I said St Elizabeth's.' Yes, they were crossing the Thames on the Waterloo Bridge, heading into North London. Quite wrong. 'Are you listening to me? This is the wrong way.'

'I know the way, Dr Watson.'

John sat back, suddenly on edge. He glanced down at his chest to see if he happened to be wearing his hospital ID on the outside of his coat, but it was still in his pocket. 'You've a funny sense of direction,' he said drily. 'Pull the cab over up here. I'm getting out.'

The cabbie didn't even glance in the rearview mirror. Instead, he pressed down on the accelerator.

John shifted forward angrily. 'Look, I'm not fooling—'

'Just hang tight, Dr Watson. We're going to see an old friend.'

The implication took only a second to register: _Mycroft_. His stomach turned over unpleasantly. 'Not interested.'

'Not negotiable.'

'Of course it's not.'

Mycroft Holmes. John had always despised the man's preferred method of communiqué—abduction—but today he found it in particular bad taste. What could the man possibly want, now, after more than three years of zero contact? Their last encounter had ended badly, and John had no inclination to sort it out now. As much as he didn't want to think about it—he _hadn't _thought about it for so long, and considered himself happier for it—he felt himself pulled inexorably back into the memory of that day.

For reasons that were still unclear to John, Mycroft had not gone to the funeral. The thought still rankled him. Instead, the elder Holmes had shown up the day after on Baker Street, a place John didn't want to be himself, not now that . . . Well, he didn't like to finish those kinds of thoughts and always pushed them down, deep. John himself was in the old flat only to pack an overnight bag; he was stuffing toiletries into the pockets when Mycroft showed up.

'You didn't come,' John had said to him. Accusation coloured each word.

Mycroft shrugged, indifferent. 'What good would it have done? The dead can't see. They don't hear.'

John shook his head in exasperation. 'You're even less human than he is. Was.'

'Now John—'

'What are you doing here? Come to collect his things? What've you got your eyes on, eh? His collection of Edgar Allen Poe? His poster of the periodic table? Or maybe his riding crop?'

'You're angry with me.'

'No shit, Mycroft.'

'You don't seriously blame me for what Sherlock did to himself.'

John had dropped the bag to the floor and walked straight up to Mycroft so that they were toe to toe. He looked up into Mycroft's prominent nostrils. 'What's that?'

'I told you about the assassins, didn't I, John? Didn't I warn you? You knew he was in danger. And he was always a danger to himself, as you well knew. I trusted you wouldn't leave him, not at such a critical time. If you had only been with him, John.'

John was astounded. '_I_ wasn't the one who blabbed all about him to that _maniac_ Moriarty!'

Mycroft's face flushed a violent shade of red. 'A misjudgement.'

'Is that all it was? Well then, all is forgiven.' He walked away, seething through his teeth and restraining his clenched fists. 'Get out of here, Mycroft.'

He never learned why Mycroft had turned up. Since that day, he hadn't seen the elder Holmes, hadn't received so much as a text. It was just as well. His had been the first name he had deleted from his phone. Against the advice of his idiot therapist, John had decided to cut all ties to that life, and Mycroft's had proved the easiest string to snap.

Until today.

'You know, he usually sends a nice, black, town car,' said John from the backseat, sarcasm leaking from the crushed grapes of his irritation. 'I didn't realise he had London's black cabs at his beck and call as well.'

John saw the cabbie's small smirk in the rearview mirror.

'I hope you don't expect me to pay for this.'

'Not to worry, Dr Watson. It's all in hand.'

The cabbie pulled off the motorway at an unfamiliar exit. Less than a mile later, he turned from the street and into a wide alleyway where, at the end, a black town car with tinted windows idled. 'And there it is,' John murmured to himself.

His thumb bounced up and down on the screen of his mobile, debating whether he should phone St E's and tell them he'd be late. But no. _No_. Mycroft had no business interfering in his life anymore. He would tell him that, exactly that, and walk away. He put away the phone.

'There you go, Dr Watson,' said the cabbie, coming to a stop and shifting the car into park.

John sighed and stepped out of the car, and the cabbie with him. But he didn't advance toward the other car. Underneath the annoyance, the thought of seeing Mycroft again was . . . upsetting. He had been having such a lovely day, too, and he knew that speaking to Mycroft Holmes would only spoil that. So he looked over his shoulder, down the stretch of alleyway, and considered just walking away.

The cabbie came up behind him. 'That's not an option, John.'

'Like hell it isn't,' John said, and he began to step around him. The cabbie, taller by at least four inches and heavier by no less than two stones, sidestepped to block his path.

'You don't want to do that.'

'Get out of my way,' said John, struggling to keep calm.

He moved again, but this time the cabbie lock his upper arm in a meaty fist. Something inside him, hovering just near the surface, snapped. He cocked his fist, and before he could stop himself, he had decked the cabbie square in the nose. The man staggered backwards, but before John could break into a run, two pairs of strong hands grabbed his arms from behind. Where they had come from he had no idea, but they were powerful and determined. He shouted as they kicked the backs of his legs in and he crashed to his knees, but he continued to struggle, trying to wrest his arms from their solid grips. They drove his face into the asphalt, kicked him sharply in the side, and one of them put a knee in his back and rested his weight there, twisting his arms painfully behind him. Then he heard the click of cuffs, and his wrists were bound.

'Get him to the car,' said the cabbie, wiping blood from his nose. 'And bag him.'

He was lifted from the ground, and a bag was thrown over his head. He stumbled forward between two men, hearing another one behind him, and another in front. A scuffle of shoes, the opening of a car door, and he was shoved inside. The car instantly began to roll forward.

This time, he thought, infuriated, Mycroft had gone too far.


	2. Chapter 2: The Face on the Wall

**Chapter 2: The Face on the Wall**

**DAY 3**

**Friday, 09.21 hrs**

'They're bringing her in for questioning,' said Sally Donovan, standing in the doorway of the detective inspector's office. 'But we're pretty sure she's the perp. She had both motive and opportunity.'

Greg Lestrade nodded mechanically, letting her talk while he slipped into his jacket. He grabbed his notepad off the desk and stepped past her, heading down the hall. She was instantly on his heels, still talking.

'Her landlady heard them fighting every night—'

'Though not the night of the murder,' he reminded her.

'No, but it's a pattern of behaviour. The prosecution can argue—'

'We're detectives, Donovan, not barristers.' He rounded a corner, walking briskly. 'Has Anderson been able to find any concrete _evidence_ linking Mrs Vander Maten to the crime scene?'

'Not yet, but his team is making a second sweep.'

Lestrade sighed. 'Unless you get me something more than _he-said she-said_, we've got nothing to hold her on.' He flipped the notepad open and quickly scanned through his scribbled notes. He had long since mastered that once-dominant impulse: to take out his phone and consult a particular expert outside of Scotland Yard; but sometimes his fingers still tingled with the urge. 'Question her all you like, but I doubt she'll give you a confession. I'm guessing she's still sticking to her story about missing her stop on the Tube—'

As they rounded a corner, Lestrade glanced up to check his path, returned to his notepad, and then his head snapped back around. He halted so abruptly that Donovan nearly crashed into him. Across the hall, he could see through a window into a darkened room set up with a projector. It was a debriefing, an entirely ordinary site at New Scotland Yard and something he had seen a thousand times. But it was the image being projected onto the wall that made both his heart and feet stop.

Donovan was still talking, but he could no longer hear her. He crossed the hall and stepped straight into the room, interrupting Jacob O'Higgins in mid-speech.

'O'Higgins, what is that man's face doing on your wall?'

Behind him, Donovan, cottoning on, said, 'Is that—?'

'A good morning to you too, Lestrade,' said O'Higgins, clearly perturbed by the intrusion.

But Lestrade was too intent on getting a quick answer to worry about breaching social etiquette. O'Higgins worked missing persons. So what was a photo of John Watson doing in his division? 'Well?'

O'Higgins riled and his large chest swelled. 'This,' he said with no small degree of petulance, 'is Dr John H Watson of 116 Porters Avenue, flat 2A, reported missing this morning at 7.15 by his girlfriend, a Ms Mary Morstan of the same address. Satisfied?'

'_Missing?_' repeated Lestrade, as if he had never heard the word before in his life. And in some ways, it felt to him as though he hadn't. Not in connection with John Watson.

'This _is_ missing persons,' sniggered Stubbins, one of O'Higgins' men.

'Missing from where? Where was he last seen?'

'Ms Morstan has neither seen nor heard from Dr Watson since approximately 4.30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, the last time he responded to one of her texts. Apparently, he was on his way to working the night shift at St Elizabeth's, but according to the staff at St E's, he never showed. Now if you don't mind, I'm in the middle of a debriefing, Lestrade. With_ my_ team. Don't you have dead bodies to worry about?'

'If he went missing Wednesday, why did it take so long to report it?'

'You're not assigned to this investigation—'

'Have you tried tracking his phone? He may have received texts or made an outgoing call.'

'Lestrade, this is not your division! Now bugger off!'

Donovan grabbed his arm to pull him away, but he pulled out of her grip and pointed a finger at O'Higgins, saying, 'I want to know the moment you learn anything important. Find him before it _does _become my division.'

He turned away angrily and continued stalking down the hall, pulling his mobile out of his pocket as he went.

'Lestrade,' said Donovan, hurrying after him. 'Lestrade! Look, it's a little crazy, I know, but don't get yourself worked up over this. I'm sure it's nothing. And O'Higgins is right—it's not your problem.'

'How very reassuring. They should assign you to talk to his girlfriend. "There now, miss, people go missing every day, I'm sure it's nothing to get worked up about." ' He snorted. 'The depth of your concern is inspiring.'

'Come off it. When's the last time you even saw the bloke? That Watson fellow was always a little off his rocker, now, wasn't he? I mean, taking to that nutter Sherlock Holmes the way he did. Couldn't really handle it when he died, could he? I think he came unhinged and never could right himself. Is it any wonder he's finally gone off the map?'

Lestrade shot her a look of derision. 'Don't you have a suspected murderer to interview, sergeant?'

'All I'm saying,' she continued, 'is that John Watson was always two steps behind that psychopath, and maybe in more ways than one. Could be he finally cracked.'

'Donovan.'

'Sir?'

'Piss off.'

He left her standing in the middle of the hall and ducked into a lift. He punched the button for the ground floor. Then he returned to his phone and quickly scrolled through his address book until he reached the Ws and hit the name _Watson_, which he had never deleted, even though he had not called the number is almost three years. He hesitated, not quite knowing what to say, then began to type.

_John, are you ok? You've_  
_been named a missing_  
_person.  
GL_

The lift doors opened. He headed straight for the street, and only when he stepped outside and felt the chill in the air did he regret not going back to his office for his coat. Where did he think he was going, anyway? It took him a moment, but then it dawned on him that he had been meaning get into his car and drive straight to Baker Street. But John didn't live on Baker Street anymore, and nor did . . . Well, of course, neither of them did. For a few minutes, he stood there, one hand in his pocket to keep it warm. He stared at the dark screen of his mobile.

Why hadn't he kept in better contact with John? If he was completely honest, what Donovan had said hadn't been completely off the mark. The last he had seen of him, John had been in a bad way, lonely and depressed and angry, at everyone and at himself, and Lestrade had feared that John might . . . do something. The therapy didn't seem to be helping one lick.

'You can't keep on like this, John,' he had said that night when John had finally consented to a pint in the pub.

John stared at the glass between his hands, but he hadn't taken more than one or two swallows, whereas Lestrade was halfway through his second pint. He didn't reply.

Lestrade pressed on. 'It's not healthy. Maybe, I don't know, go on holiday somewhere sunny.' It sounded pathetic, even to him, so he changed tactics. 'What about Harry? You could take off, spend a few weeks with her. How's she been lately?'

John's eyes seemed to be avoiding him. He looked toward the bar, the door, and finally back at his glass. He took a deep breath, then spoke. 'I read in the paper,' he said, and it was obvious that he was fighting to keep his voice level, 'that Moriarty was buried under the name Richard Brook.' His face twisted a little, struggling for composure. 'That his death has been attributed to Sher— to murder, not suicide.'

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Lestrade said, 'Yeah, well . . . You know how papers are.'

'It cited Scotland Yard.' His eyes darted upwards and locked on Lestrade, accusing.

Lestrade took a long drink before answering. 'The evidence suggested—'

John slammed a fist down on the table; their glasses jumped and people around them turned to stare. 'Damn it, Greg, you know that's not true.'

'_I _know it, John, but I wasn't the only copper on the scene. And based on everything else that happened that night, the prevailing theory was that Brook's— _Moriarty's_ gun was planted in his hand.'

'Leaving behind only _his_ prints? Shot at _that_ angle? Come _on_, Greg!'

'The problem is, everyone knows how clever he was. Sherlock, I mean.' John flinched at the name, as if the sound of it were a needle in his ear. 'They think it was staged to look like a suicide. And a murder-suicide makes a hell of a lot more sense to them than two men convincing one _another_ to commit suicides. They're making excuses, I know, but having _me_ as a lone defender isn't helping matters. I'm in hot water as it is down at the Yard.'

John pushed his glass away and began to stand.

'John,' he said, trying to detain him. He had meant for this evening to be a night of relaxation for John, a night out with mates to show him that he wasn't alone, that things would be all right. This was going very badly.

'We've said all we need to,' said John. With that, he walked out of the pub. He never responded to another of Lestrade's calls again. Lestrade prayed that, today, that pattern would be broken.

Suddenly, the mobile lit up in his hand, and a second later it rang. Lestrade's heart leapt hopefully and he flipped it open, only to find that it was Donovan.

'Lestrade,' he said coolly.

'She's talking. Get in here, you'll want to hear it.'

He closed the phone with a snap and went back inside.


	3. Chapter 3: You Observe

**Chapter 3: You Observe, You Just Don't See**

**DAY 1**

**Wednesday, 18.05 hrs**

His wrists—pinned behind him against the backseat of the town car—were already chaffing in the cuffs by the time the car rolled to a stop. The engine kept rumbling. Moments later, he heard the car doors open. Someone grabbed his shoulder, his arm, and pulled him from the vehicle.

'Walk,' a voice said. It was low and coarse, better suited for barking than speaking.

'You can take the bag off now, I expect,' said John, standing still, not knowing where to place his foot, but a hard, blunt object jabbed him in the back, hard enough to leave a bruise, and he started walking blindly. Soon, hands grabbed his arms on either side to guide him, his coat sleeves bunching into their fists. When they deemed him too slow, they jerked him forward, and when he lost his balance as a result, yanked him roughly as though to right him. Clearly, Mycroft didn't care about putting him in a good mood.

He tried to imagine where he must be. They'd been driving for twenty, maybe thirty minutes, motorways mostly, so they were probably still in London, maybe just on the outskirts. But the world seemed quieter here—no city traffic, no after-school children screaming, not even birds. The ground beneath his feet felt like loose gravel. But soon he felt he had been led indoors. The groan of heavy doors, tiled floors, the echo of each footstep down a long corridor. They walked twelve paces and turned left. Then down, down as they descended a curving stairwell into lower levels. Ten steps, twenty, and at last forty-two. Was that two flights, or three? He wasn't sure, but he counted the steps, unable to suppress what felt like a memory from another man's life.

_You go up and down these steps into our flat several times a day. How many are there?_

_How many? I don't know._

_Exactly! You see, John, you just don't observe_._ There are seventeen. I knew it the day I moved in._

He was counting now. Observing. It seemed the best thing to do, given that he was unable to see. What good it would do him in the end, he didn't know, but it felt important, somehow, that he pay attention to so trivial a detail. Forty-two steps down, and then he was walking levelly again, straight for eighteen steps, then jerked abruptly to the left and through a doorway. Twenty-seven steps, and now to the right.

At last, they pulled him to a stop. 'Cuffs off,' someone said. 'And coat.'

The key scratched the lock, and the cuffs were finally removed. Then his coat was pulled down his shoulders. He moved to pull the bag from his head, but his arms were seized and held down. He couldn't even rub his wrists to soothe the chaffing.

'Put him in the chair.'

He was spun around. Large hands pushed down hard on his shoulders, and he fell into a folding metal chair. Then he heard the jingle of the cuffs again as his left wrist was chained to a chair leg.

They were still detaining him? This was wrong. A surge of panic rose from his gut and he instinctually tried to stand, and when hands pressed him back down he took a swing with his free arm. Something hard knocked into his head and he saw stars. In that moment, when he was subdued, his right arm was chained down just like his left.

'That'll do. Let me see him.'

The bag was torn away. John blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. He tried to see where he was: two long rows of fluorescent light bulbs above his head, most broken, some flickering, alongside large iron hooks; and below them, long counters stretching toward an exit twenty-two steps away. On one wall, stainless steel shelving and cupboards, large utility sinks, and ovens. On the other, large metal doors. Below his feet, orange tiles, and a few drains within sight.

And standing before him, four men like shadows under the flickering fluorescent lights.

Not Mycroft.

It was then that he truly understood that he was in danger. He could have kicked himself. Stupid, stupid! Why hadn't he phoned someone from the cab, while his mobile had still been in his hands? Why hadn't he texted Mary? He didn't know where he was, nobody did. About now, the nurses at the hospital were probably wondering when he would show, though not panicking. Not yet. How long before someone realised he was missing?

He straightened in the metal folding chair and looked boldly up at the men. 'What do you want?' he asked.

One man folded his arms, appraising him. 'Just a simple answer, John. To a single question.'

'You couldn't have phoned?'

The man's lip twitched in something of a smile, but it was without humour. Then came the question, and it felt to John like he'd been punched in the stomach:

'Where is Sherlock Holmes?'

He stared at the man, nonplussed. His heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. For a moment, he tried to make sense of what the man had said. Four simple words, two achingly familiar, and yet strung together in the most nonsensical interrogatory statement.

Again, the question:

'Where is Sherlock Holmes?'

'Is this a joke?' he choked.

A larger man on the right, one powerfully built and with a face like stone, stepped forward and with an open hand slapped John soundly across the face.

'Feel like laughing?' asked the first.

The man's hand had the span of a frying pan—the whole side of John's face burned with the sting of it.

'I'll ask you one more time, Dr Watson. Give me an answer I like, and you walk out of this room tonight. Otherwise, things will turn very unpleasant, very quickly.' The man bent over at the waist, resting his hands on his knees, so that his nose was level with John's. His eyes were dark blue, his face narrow. He had a mole above one dark eyebrow and a five o'clock shadow. Curiously, his breath smelled like peppermint. But beyond noting these details, John could deduce nothing about him. He had never been able to read a man at a glance. Not like . . .

In a soft, dangerous voice, the man asked one more time: 'Where is Sherlock Holmes?'

John swallowed hard, and his fists balled around the chair legs. 'He's dead.'

The man tsked. 'Wrong answer, Johnny boy.' He straightened and stepped back, nodding to the large man, who advanced again. This time, John braced for the blow.

His head swung round and his ears rang.

'We're just getting started here,' said the man, the apparent leader. 'We can go all night. Hell, we can go for days. It's entirely up to you.'

'You're insane,' said John. He licked his lip at the corner of the mouth and tasted blood. 'Sher—' He took a deep breath and tried again. 'Sherlock Holmes is dead. He's been dead for over three years.'

'Don't waste your breath lying. We know he's alive. And we know _you_ know where he is.'

John glared up at him. The man was crazy, truly mental. Sherlock, alive? It was unthinkable. Once, John had entertained the fantasy that it had all been a nightmare—Moriarty, Sherlock's fall, standing at the gravesite—because the truth of it was too painful to bear. But it was true. Sherlock was dead. He had seen it with his own eyes.

In his periphery, he saw the larger man slide brass knuckles onto his hand.

'Well?'

'Newport,' said John. The man's eyebrows lifted, as if he hadn't expected so quick an answer. Then John finished. 'Newport Cemetery. I can get you the plot number, if you'd like.'

This time, the man didn't crack a smile. He signalled again to his number two, whose fist was already drawn back. A second later, John felt like his skull had split wide. He was on the floor, his head rolling on tiles and his right arm pinned painfully beneath the metal chair that had fallen over with him. He heard the command for someone to pick him up, and then he was hauled back upright. When he had steadied, he could feel his own warm blood sliding down his face from the split skin at his temple. He was pretty sure they had reopened an old wound.

That's when he heard a familiar melody. The leader nodded to one of the other men, who dug into the pockets of John's shucked coat, pulled out his mobile, and read the name off the screen: _Radcliffe_. John sighed against the pain in his skull. Anna Radcliffe, from his surgery team. They were scheduled to perform a general laparoscopy at 6.30. John said a silent prayer, willing her to call the police and report him missing. It wasn't like him to show up late for surgery.

After a few seconds, the phoned silenced, and the leader said, 'Pete, program Dr Watson's phone so it can't be traced.' He turned back to John. 'There now. We'll want to keep it in working order after all.' He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out what John at first thought was a silver pen. Then he saw the narrow tip gleam.

'Tool of your own trade, isn't it, doctor?' he said, rolling the scalpel between his thumb and forefinger. 'Tell me, John, you were a military man. Ever been a prisoner of war?' He stepped closer and dragged the tip of the scalpel lightly down John's right cheek, almost as if it were a caress. 'Ever had information . . . _extracted_?'

'There's nothing you can get from me,' John said, his voice steady, despite the fear that crept through his veins. 'I don't know anything.'

'That's not true. You were Mr Holmes' main man, his confidante, the one person he truly cared about.'

'_That's_ not true.'

'Of all people, he would have told _you_ his little secret. And you're the only man alive capable of finding him now.'

'He's dead, you bastard! I've told you, he's dead!'

'You're fiercely loyal. I can't help but admire it.' The man bent low again, like he had before, to look John in the eyes. 'The thing is, John, I'm fiercely loyal, too. You see, Sherlock Holmes is responsible for the death of my employer, Jim Moriarty. I'm going to repay him in kind, and you're going to help me. The first thing we'll do'—he dangled the scalpel before John's eyes—'is prepare a little present for our good friend Sherlock. My name is Sebastian Moran. And I'm going to break you.'


	4. Chapter 4: Outside His Division

**Chapter 4: Outside His Division**

**DAY 4**

**Saturday, 15.17 hrs**

Lestrade pressed a thumb to the buzzer and waited, casting his eyes back toward to the street in case O'Higgins or someone from his division happened to be stopping by at the same time.

'Hullo?'

'Ms Morstan?'

'Yes, who is it?'

'Ms Morstan, this is DI Lestrade of Scotland Yard, missing persons division. I need to ask you a few questions regarding John Watson's disappearance.'

The door buzzed open, and Lestrade let himself inside the building.

Mary was standing in the open doorway to her flat on the second floor when Lestrade appeared at the top of the staircase. He had never met her before, hadn't even known John was in a relationship, but he could certainly see the attraction. Mary was short and petite (just John's size, he thought, suppressing a smile) and in her mid- to late-thirties. She wore her long ginger hair loose around her face, and little makeup, just an accent of eye colour and a soft gloss on her lips. Lestrade imagined that she must look quite beautiful when she smiled, but just now lines of worry marked the edges of her mouth instead. 'Have you learnt anything?' she asked stepping back to let Lestrade into the flat.

'Not much,' said Lestrade vaguely, having no real idea of what O'Higgins had uncovered in the last twenty-four hours.

'The other detective,' she said, 'he told me they'd put out a description, said something normally turned up within the first forty-eight hours if . . . you know. Otherwise they begin to assume . . .'

_The wanker_, thought Lestrade. However did a man like that rise to head of missing persons? 'There's no cause for alarm yet, Ms Morstan.'

'Mary, please. And won't you sit down? Can I get you something? Tea? I've just put on the kettle.'

'Thank you.'

'I apologise for the mess. I only just got home from work and haven't had a moment to straighten things up.'

He looked around, wondering what she could mean. The place looked pretty damn tidy to him. 'Mary—'

'It's silly, I know, but all the way home, I kept thinking that maybe I'd walk into the flat and he'd be there, just there, reading the paper like nothing had happened. I'd throw something at him, of course, and scream at him for making me worry, but everything would be all right, you know? He'd calm me down and have some perfectly reasonable explanation. Like alien abduction.' She tried to laugh at her bad joke but couldn't quite manage it. 'I'm sorry. You had questions.'

Listening to her go on about John, he suddenly had the urge to throw off all pretences of working with O'Higgins. 'Mary, I want to be honest with you. I'm not from missing persons.'

Her eyes went wide with apprehension. 'You're not a cop?'

'No, I am, but I work homicide.'

She gasped, and a hand flew to her mouth.

'No! Sorry, I'—_now who's the wanker?_—'what I mean is, I'm not actually assigned to John's case. But you see, I know him. He and I were friends, and so when I heard he'd gone missing, I wanted to help.'

Mary lowered her hand from her mouth; it rested over her heart. 'I didn't know he had any copper friends.'

'We . . . had something of a falling out, a while back. But I still consider him a friend.' He wondered if John would appreciate knowing that, or if he would be irritated that he had chosen to intrude himself on this investigation. What business was it of his, really?

'Of course. Whatever help you can offer, detective inspector—'

'Greg,' he said. 'Like I said, I'm not officially assigned to the case. And, to be _perfectly _honest, it might be best if O'Higgins and his people don't know I've been to talk to you. They might pull me.'

She understood. 'I'm sure John would be grateful. I am.'

He smiled at her. 'Thank you. Then, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you some questions. About John.'

'I don't mind.'

He pulled out his notepad and began asking the more standard questions he was sure she had already gone through with O'Higgins: When had she last heard from him? Has he ever disappeared like this before? Does he have any favourite haunts? Has he recently had any conflicts, at work or in his social life or at home? Does he have any enemies, people that might want to hurt him?

'John? Oh no. Everybody likes him. He's always so kind, so thoughtful. I mean, he's never been a social butterfly or anything. Kind of reserved, slow to open up. You know? He guards himself, as it were. But no one ever has anything bad to say about him other than that he's too quiet at parties.' She laughed shortly. 'Sorry, but you probably already know all this. You know John, after all.'

_Not that version of John_, thought Lestrade sadly. 'Have you been in touch with anyone he might have contacted, a friend, or family members?'

'I've called all his friends, and his co-workers too. No one knows anything. And he doesn't have any family.'

Lestrade looked up from his pad. 'What about Harry?'

'His sister? Oh, hadn't you heard? She died a couple of years ago.'

'What?'

'Before he and I ever met. Harry'd been drinking pretty heavily one night and got behind the wheel. They say it was pretty awful. John doesn't like talking about it. He was pretty torn up after it happened. She was the only family he had.'

'I didn't know,' he said, feeling miserable. First Sherlock, then Harry within the year. And Lestrade had been useless through it all.

'It's a time period in his life he doesn't even like to think about,' said Mary. 'I know he had lost a friend, not long before.'

'Sherlock Holmes.'

'Yes, him. Did you know him?'

Lestrade nodded.

'There are so many stories floating around him, I don't know what to believe. I've asked John what he was like, but . . . Like I said, he doesn't like talking about it. It upsets him. Which is sad, because it's thanks to Sherlock Holmes that John and I met.'

That took Lestrade aback. 'I thought you met after—'

'We did.' She smiled a little, remembering. 'I had gotten into a spot of trouble, you see. Nothing serious, and nothing to involve the police over. But my sister put it into my head to hire a private detective. I didn't even know where to start! But then I came across John's blog online. It hadn't been touched in almost two years, but I started reading some of the stories—cases—that he and Mr Holmes had been involved in. It was brilliant. I loved everything I read, and I got it into my head that they could help me. Of course, a little more digging, and I learned that Mr Holmes had committed suicide. So tragic. There were other things written about him that John has since assured me are simply not true. It's hard to know what to believe sometimes, but I trust John.

'In any case, I was still determined to get help, and I figured that this John Watson fellow must be a detective himself and could help me. So I tracked him down. Found him working at St Elizabeth's. He thought I was there for a consultation, of course, and I was so nervous I didn't dispel him of that straight away, so I made up some story about chest pains. He was listening to me breathe through a stethoscope when I just blurted it out—that I needed a PI. Oh, the look on his face! You should have seen it. When he had recovered himself, more or less, and I had explained myself a little more, he told me that there was nothing he could do to help me. But the more we got to talking, the more interested he became and, well, one thing led to another . . . He did end up helping me, quite a lot actually. He kept saying he wasn't cut out for it on his own, that he didn't have the brain or the passion, but he, you know, solved my case. Is that the phrase? He apologised that it took him so long—a week, I think it was—because he said that someone else could have done it in a day. But I was wishing it would have taken him twice as long, _ten times_ as long, just so I would have an excuse to talk with him. I shouldn't have been so worried. The day after everything was resolved, he asked if I would care to join him for coffee.' She grinned. 'We've been together ever since. Sorry, I hear the kettle. A moment.'

Lestrade nodded and stood. 'Would you mind if I had a look around?'

She consented and excused herself to the kitchen to prepare the tea. Alone in the centre of the sitting room, he turned in place and tried to get a good impression of the kind of life John had been living. It was small and modest, clean and fairly tidy. On the wall was a collage of framed photographs of John and Mary together, in a park, at a pub, one in front of Stonehenge. In almost every photo, John's arms were around her and their faces were pressed together as they smiled at the camera. There were newspapers at the foot of one leather chair and a desk with stacked medical journals, a flip calendar of the 365 Most Beautiful Places to Visit Before You Die, and a cleared space just the right size for a laptop.

'Mary,' he said as she came back into the room, bearing two teacups and passing one to him. 'Is John's laptop here?'

'Hm? Oh. No, the other detective, O'Higgins, he took it.'

'Ah.' Then he had a thought. 'Does John ever use yours?'

She began to shake her head, then stopped herself. 'Sometimes, yes. He keeps his out here, but I keep mine in the bedroom, so sometimes late at night, or early in the morning when I'm in the shower . . . I'll go get it for you.'

A moment later, she returned with a her own laptop and set it at the desk. Lestrade pulled back the chair and set his tea on top of the stack of journals. He opened the laptop and came to the login screen, which was password protected.

'Sorry, would you mind—?'

'Hamish,' she said. Then she blushed. 'John always tells me never to use my personal information as a password. So as a joke, I use his.'

Lestrade typed _Hamish_ into the password field. When he came to the home screen, he opened an internet browser.

'What are you looking for?'

'History. O'Higgins will be searching John's laptop for emails and recently visited sites, looking for anything that might be a red flag. Hostile emails, unexpected searches—like airline tickets to Peru or how to make a pipe bomb—or unusual purchases. Something that can be used as a lead. But if he's used your laptop too, O'Higgins won't have a full picture of websites he's visited.'

He pulled up the history from Wednesday, the last day John had been seen, but neither he nor Mary saw anything of note. Then he checked the day before.

'Let's see,' said Lestrade under his breath as he scrolled. 'Email login screen, that's yours; a site on the science of tornados . . .'

'There was a programme on the telly,' she murmured by way of explanation. 'I got curious.'

He grinned, continuing. 'Directions to 29 Chadwell . . .'

'Home of a friend.'

'A Google search for London jewellers . . .'

'That's not mine,' she said, suddenly breathless.

Lestrade noted the time stamps on the sites. In addition to his Google search, John had visited five websites for jewellers on or near Walworth Road in South London. He began to take down the addresses in his notebook.

'Things were getting pretty serious then, eh?' said Lestrade.

'I . . . Yes. We had . . . talked a little, but . . .'

Lestrade looked up from the pad and saw that she was nearly crying. She turned away to wipe her eyes.

'I didn't know he felt so—' She took a deep breath to compose herself. 'The thing about John is that he always took things so slowly, like he was afraid of growing too attached, or maybe because he thought I would call it quits. He would hate for me to be saying this, but he has such a tender heart. It wounds so easily. So he, you know, protects it. You have no idea how long it took for me to convince him to move in here with me, and when I told him I was in love with him, I think it took me saying it fifty times before he finally believed me. But when he did, it was like everything changed. He was so happy, and he did everything he could think of to make me happy too, still afraid I would change my mind about him. The goon.' She laughed a little through her tears. 'Look at me, I'm getting ahead of myself. So what if he looked at sites for jewellers? That doesn't mean anything. It could be for anything. Earrings or something. My birthday isn't anytime soon, but Christmas is only a couple months away . . .'

Lestrade stood and put the pad back inside his jacket pocket. 'Speaking from experience, let me just say that men to don't go to the jewellers to buy Christmas _earrings_ in October. We just don't do it.'

She nodded, still fighting for composure. 'Oh John, where are you?'

'Listen Mary, I'm going to go pay these places a visit, see if he stopped by. It might just be the lead we've been looking for.'

'Thank you, Greg. You're a good friend.'

'I'm trying, anyway.' He looked back at the wall. 'May I borrow a picture of him?'

**Saturday, 16.49 hrs**

For the fourth time that afternoon, Lestrade pulled the photo out and flashed it across a counter. 'Do you recognise this man?' he asked. The first address he had visited had put John there at approximately 3.00 in the afternoon on Wednesday, and the second at around 3.30. The third hadn't recognised the photo.

The shopkeeper adjusted his glasses on the end of his nose. 'Oh yeah. Him. Why? What did he do?'

'What day was that?'

"Uh, let me see now. Wednesday, that would have been. Afternoon.'

'Can you be more any more precise? Approximately what time on Wednesday afternoon?'

'Can't say off the top of my head. But I can check the card statement. He bought a ring.'

_Attaboy, John_, Lestrade thought, but the congratulatory feeling soured in the circumstances.

'He was supposed to have picked it up yesterday,' said the shopkeeper as he fingered through his files. 'I called but no one answered. Had to leave a voicemail. Here it is. Ran the card at 16.51 hours.'

Mary's first text had been four minutes after that. John's last had been at 17.05.

'When Dr Watson left the shop, did you happen to see where he went?'

'Got into a cab. Headed north.'

'Thank you.'

He needed to continue tracing John's steps. His next task was to track down the right cabbie.

**Saturday, 18.12 hrs**

Before he could pursue that lead, however, Lestrade received a call from Donovan.

'Where are you? I feel like I'm working this case myself.' Then she added, rather too late, 'Sir.'

'What do you need, Donovan?' he asked, a little more sharply than he intended.

'Just got a call from the mortuary at Barts. Apparently, they missed something on the body. I'm on my way down there now.'

Lestrade hesitated. He really wanted to talk to the cab company, find out who might have picked John up on Walworth Road and where he had been dropped off. O'Higgins was following the wrong trails—Lestrade was sure he didn't know about this timeline—but he couldn't admit he'd been working the same case behind his back, outside his own division. He was still wearing the shame of reprimand from three years before, and as long as Tony Pitts was chief superintendent, he would never live it down. To keep his job, he had, until yesterday, been careful to play strictly by the book. So even though Donovan was more than capable of taking the lead on this one, he couldn't hand over the reins to her and work secretly on another DI's case. Besides, Donovan had been less subtle as of late in angling for his job, and he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of even pretending to be better qualified for it. John's case would just have to . . . be patient.

'On my way,' he said. And he pointed his car toward St Bartholomew's Hospital.

**Saturday, 18.44 hrs**

'Greg!'

'Molly Hooper, it's been far too long,' said Lestrade, feeling suddenly more amiable. Donovan had the uncanny effect of terminating one's pleasant mood. Molly had a knack for bringing it back. 'I didn't even think of who the mortuary attendant would be. But of course. Barts. It's been a while. How are things?'

'Oh, just lovely. Hard to complain about your own trifling problems when your patients are in a bad way.' She laughed, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Lestrade couldn't help himself and laughed with her. She brightened as if this were an unusual but appreciated reaction to one of her jokes.

'The body,' said Donovan, her voice, as always, tinctured with impatience.

Molly led them to the corpse of Frank Vander Maten and began to explain about one of the lab technicians having botched the tox screen, and about a needle puncture on the body's inner thigh she hadn't noticed previously. Donovan was taking notes, asking questions, and making snide comments about incompetent technicians and attendants. Lestrade offered only customary nods, not really listening, as he flipped through his notepad, thinking that none of it made sense. John was obviously a happy man, a man about to get engaged, a man with a good job. He wouldn't have taken off on his own, but who would have any cause to hurt him? Then again, there had been no evidence of violence, or kidnapping, nothing at all to indicate what had happened.

'Sir. _Sir._'

His head came around to where Donovan was standing with mounted annoyance, her hand propping open the door. 'Right, we'll be off then,' he said. She rolled her eyes and left the mortuary. 'Thanks, Molly.' He made to leave.

'Tough case, is it?'

'Hm? Oh. Right. Real sticky one, this.' He took another step then halted. Molly had known John, too. 'Molly?'

'Yes?' She stepped forward.

'Are you still in contact with John Watson?'

'John?'

'Seen him or talked to him lately?'

She shook her head. 'Not since . . .'

'I know.' _Not since Sherlock exited all our lives_.

'Why? Is he all right?'

Lestrade sighed and spread his hands helplessly. 'He's missing.'

Her face fell. 'What do you mean?'

'He's been reported as a missing person. No one has seen or heard from him for more than seventy-two hours now. It's like he just fell off the map.'

Molly's eyebrows rose in alarm. 'You don't suspect that he's . . . dead. Do you?'

'There's no evidence to suggest that. He might not be in any trouble at all. He's just . . . missing. It's not like him. Well, not like the John I once knew.'

She bit her lower lip.

'I'm sure it's nothing, Molly. He'll turn up. I'll knock him about the head a bit, and that girl of his will call him every nasty name in the book, but it'll be all right.' He grinned and, to lighten the mood, said, 'You should have flowers in here. Liven things up a bit.' He winced at his own tactless joke. She didn't laugh.

'The pollen,' she said, 'contaminates the bodies.'

'Right.'

He really did leave then. Just as the doors swung closed, however, he looked through the window and saw that Molly had pulled out her mobile and was beginning to text.


	5. Chapter 5: Gifts for Sherlock Holmes

**Chapter 5: Gifts for Sherlock Holmes**

**DAY 2**

**Thursday, 06.39 hrs**

Sebastian Moran had gone. Hours ago. He had taken two of his cronies with him, the large one (Daz, he thought he heard) and another (maybe Peter?), leaving behind the smallest of the four, a man not much larger in stature than John, a man named Lex.

It didn't matter the man's size. John was still cuffed to the chair. His head, which not long ago had felt light and dizzy from loss of blood, now felt heavy, like it was filled with sand, and every time he moved it, the sand shifted but always pulled down, the slave of gravity. His swollen face felt stiff, and not just from the cold. It felt as though it were made of plastic; he could feel its inelasticity every time he blinked or moved his mouth. The muscles in his back and shoulders and legs were cramping. He was thirsty, but his last request for water had been met with another tipping-chair scenario, and he wasn't keen on having a third.

Worse than the thirst, the cramped muscles, or the head trauma, was the cut Moran had given him before leaving. He still wasn't quite sure what had happened. Moran had called it his _gift_ to Sherlock, and that for every day John refused to talk, he would craft Sherlock another.

To begin, Moran had slipped out of his pinstriped suit coat and laid in on one of the long countertops. Then, as two of his men uncuffed John, he rolled up his sleeves, slowly, his eyes fixed on John's. 'Face down, on the floor,' he had said. Then, 'Hold down his arms and legs.'

John felt himself restrained, his wrists and ankles clamped in the three men's hands as they stretched his arms and legs to their full length. Then Moran stood over him, one leg on either side of his waist. Slowly, he lowered himself down until he sat on John's buttocks, straddling his sides. John felt his chequered shirt and vest pulled out of his belt and hitched up to expose his back. That's when Moran leaned forward, across his bare skin, and put his lips to John's ear. He dangled the scalpel again in front of his eyes. 'Our little gift for Sherlock, right, Johnny boy?' The next thing John knew, Moran had pressed the tip of the scalpel into his back and slowly dragged it through his skin, two, three inches. John hollered. He squirmed, tried to break free of the men holding him down, but every effort was futile. The tip found a new home, and Moran curved through the skin as if he were painting on a canvas, humming to himself. John tried to kick his leg, to jerk his hands free, to roll his body, as Moran made one more cut.

'Shh, shh,' Moran said soothingly, petting the small of John's back as if he were a kitten, while the blood slipped down his sides. 'That's _one_.' He tugged the shirt back down and ordered that John be returned to the chair.

Now, John could feel his shirt sticking to the skin of his back with his own dried blood, and every movement pulled at the tender flesh.

His mobile sounded.

John lifted his head and saw Lex, seated on one of the long tables, reach for it. St E's had called four times since that first attempt, and he wondered if this were another.

'Ooh, a new one,' said the man, reading the screen. 'From Mary. What a pretty name. Shall I answer?'

_Yes, yes, answer! _John thought. Then he would shout _abandoned building!_ and _police!_ and _Sebastian Moran!_ if he had time. Mary, his dear Mary, she would figure it out. She would be confused, initially, but she would figure it out. She would call the police. They would find him.

But the man didn't answer, just flipped the phone in the air and caught it, playing with it. A few moments later, it sounded again: a text.

The man retrieved it. '_I'm at Vivian's_,' he read aloud. '_Running late?_' He looked at John. 'Late for what, eh? Early morning quickie? Threesome?' Then he sniggered to himself and put the phone away.

Early morning. So it was 6.30, or thereabouts, and Mary was sitting in the cafe. She had probably already ordered two coffees, one black, one cream and two sugars. How long would she sit there, waiting for someone who would never show, for someone trapped in some subterranean hole, the fluorescent bulbs flickering on and off like a strobe light. His eyes burned with it.

As the morning wore on, Mary's calls and texts kept coming. While the calls were ignored, each text was read aloud and accompanied by commentary.

'_I guess you got tied up._ How right she is! _I have to go to work. Text me? x_.'

'_Everything okay, John? I haven't heard from you. I'm at work. Please call. _What's she do, Johnny boy? Dancer at the gentleman's club? Is that where you met?'

'_I called E's. They said you missed your shift last night. Where are you?_ If we leave her hanging long enough, think she'll send us an enticing photo to hasten your return?'

'_I'm getting really worried. Please call._'

The little man opened his mouth, but his next retort was cut short at the sound of footsteps in the far corridor. John tried to fight the trepidation rising in his stomach. Lex was a dick, but he was also a squeamish dick and didn't seem to like the sight of blood. Rather, he seemed to be the type who shied away from a fight, never threw punches, probably screamed like a girl, which made being guarded by such a man so degrading. The other three, however . . .

'How's our boy?' sang Moran the moment he entered the long room. 'How's our Johnny? Ready to talk?' He slipped off his suit coat as he walked and tossed it on one of the long tables. Then he came to a stop directly in front of his prisoner.

John flinched when Moran reached for his face, which elicited laughter from all four of them. 'There now, just saying hullo,' said Moran, grabbing John under the chin and forcing him to look up. '_Hi._' He smiled cruelly. 'I see the bleeding stopped. I did wonder.' With his other hand, he tapped his thumb against the wound at his left temple while brushing his fingers through John's short hair. John sucked in air through his teeth but fought to maintain eye contact, enough to glare at the man.

'Ha! Look at that, boys, he's _angry_ with me. Does that hurt?' He tapped again; John's eye twitched. 'Well then. Maybe we can divert some attention from that little owie. Or, you can answer my question. Same as last night, Johnny boy. Whataya say?'

'You're asking me to point you to a dead man.'

'No, I'm begging. Do you see me begging you, John?' He got on his knees in front of John, now forcing him to look down. He rubbed the tops of John's thighs and, with head lowered, looked up at him through long, dark lashes. 'I don't want to hurt you. I think we could be friends, you and I. We're not so different, after all.' He rested his chin on John's knee and dragged his hands down John's legs until they encircled each ankle. 'This is me begging. _Please_, John. Tell me. Where is Sherlock Holmes?'

John's legs weren't tied down. He could kick, maybe land one directly in the man's crotch. Or he could knock a knee into Moran's jaw. Maybe, if he was fast enough, he could lock his legs around Moran's neck, turning over the chair in the process, sure, but if it gave him enough leverage to _crack_ him . . . Then what? The other three men would make sure he never saw daylight again.

'How do I find him?'

'Piss off,' he said through gritted teeth.

Moran's large eyes suddenly darkened. John didn't know where it came from: in the next moment, he felt a searing pain in his left calf. He threw his head back and cried out, and when Moran yanked the scalpel from his flesh he cried out again.

'Shall I ask you again?'

Tears of pain rolled down his cheeks. 'You think I know something,' said John, breathing heavily, 'but I don't. I _swear_ I don't.'

Moran rose quickly to his feet, his little playacting done. 'I meant what I said, John. You and I, we're not so different. We're both military men. We're both handy with a gun. You're good—I'm better. And not too long ago, we both found ourselves drawn, helplessly drawn, to brilliant men. Geniuses. Mine more so than yours. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? You and I—we're the same. That's why I get you. I _understand_, John, your devotion to him. You're just trying to protect your master; I'm trying to avenge mine. Only one of us can win in the end, though, don't you see?'

'Sherlock was never my—' He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to block out the pain. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn the scalpel was still lodged in his leg.

'Of course not. Your mate. Right. An equal.' He laughed scathingly. 'But I make no bones about it. Jim was a greater man than I. When he wanted to destroy someone, all he had to do was play his little mind games. He was so good at it, too, so brilliant. Didn't have to lay a finger on you, just a quick jimmy into your head, a thorough mind-ravishing, and you were toast. I'm not like that. I could never be as good as that. When I need to destroy a man, I go for the body.' He placed a splayed hand against John's chest. John wondered whether he could feel his pounding heart.

But his mobile sounded, announcing a new text.

'Read it to us, Lex,' said Moran. As Lex reached for the mobile, Moran walked around behind John and placed two hands on his shoulders, slowly dragging them up into his hair and running his fingernails along John's scalp.

'From Mary Mary Quite Contrary,' Lex said.

'The lady love, is it, John?' said Moran in his ear.

'_I've tried to be calm, but I know something is wrong. I'm going to the police._'

Moran chuckled. 'Took a while, didn't it? How long do you think it was before she realised you were even gone? Is she the only person out there worried about you, Johnny boy? I wouldn't hold out too much hope in the police. We've got eyes, ears, and hands on the inside.'

John felt as though his hope were being sifted through a sieve. Each shake, each jerk, and a little more was lost.

'Take his belt off for me, will you, Daz, my man?'

The large man didn't wait even a beat. He came forward eagerly and knelt in the spot Moran had recently occupied. Eyes watching John, he started undoing John's belt with what felt like practiced fingers. John stiffened. 'Don't get so excited,' said Moran, still combing his fingers through John's hair. 'Daz isn't allowed. Not without my permission. I just need your belt.'

Daz jerked the leather through the loops and passed it over to Moran, who draped it around John's neck like a feather boa, then put one end through the buckle. 'This is the game tonight. For every wrong answer, sixty seconds in the strap. We'll see who can play the longest, you or me. Time us, will you, Lex?'

John curled his fingers around the edges of the chair.

'Where is Sherlock Holmes?'

'Dead.'

He braced.

**Thursday, 22.05 hrs**

They threw him to the floor, and his head rebounded. He breathed, just breathed, and each inhalation like like barbs in his throat, chest, and lungs. His neck was raw from the leather belt, now chaffed worse than his wrists. Air caught in his throat, which felt crushed like a broken birdcage, and he coughed, gasped, and coughed some more.

'My second gift to Sherlock,' said Moran. He had in hand the scalpel, already coloured with John's dried blood.

The others moved to hold him down, and he felt his shirt being pushed up and his back exposed.

Second gift. John understood: it was the end of the second day. Only the second day.

**Friday, 09.27 hrs**

'Who's GL?'

The voice sounded like it was travelling through water. John was at the bottom of a lake, and he didn't care to rise to meet it. He wanted to sink and let the blackness take over.

Someone slapped him hard in the face.

He opened his eyes and saw Moran holding his mobile out to him. He read:

_John, are you ok? You've_  
_been named a missing_  
_person._  
_GL_

He blinked, trying to think, but his dominant thoughts swirled around his aching thirst, his clenched stomach, the throbbing in his head.

'Come on, Johnny boy,' said Moran, patting his cheek roughly, repeatedly. 'Think. Who's GL? 'Nother girlfriend? Secret lover?'

As if from another man's life, the memory came floating back to him. _Lestrade_. His lips moved to form the word, but he had just enough wherewithal to bite down on his tongue and stop himself.

'Ooh, he doesn't want to say,' said Moran, and Lex tittered. 'Must be someone important. And I so do want to know who might be so important.' He gripped the back of John's tender neck like it was the scruff of a kitten. 'Say it.'

John grit his teeth. Not for the first time in the last two days, he tried to convince himself that this was just like his MATTs, his Military Annual Training Tests. They had trained him for situations like this, how to cope with torture, how to evade extraction. He repeated the mantra in his head: survive, evade, resist, extract. SERE. Now, it was real. He could do this.

'Always the stubborn one.' Moran clicked his fingers. 'Oi. Pete. Get John here to tell us all about GL.'

Warily, John watched as Pete set a rolled canvas cloth of military grade on the counter and spread it flat. Tucked into little pockets and straps were a variety of silver tools. John closed his eyes momentarily and steeled himself.

Then Pete came forward. If Moran's eyes were calculating, Lex's were wild, and Daz's were ravenous, then Pete's eyes were cold and callous. He spoke little, and when he acted it was without a second thought. The moment he reached John, he seized his left hand, fitted a pair of pliers around his index finger, just past the first knuckle, and squeezed and twisted simultaneously. The bone cracked and John screamed.

'There's nine more chances to fess up,' said Moran.

John's toes were curling with the pain in his finger.

'Again, Pete.'

There was no hesitation. Pete reached for the other hand and broke his small finger. He screamed again.

'One more?'

But he couldn't take it. He croaked out, 'Lestrade!'

Moran thought for a moment, then a smile spread over his face. 'Ah yes. Our mutual friend at New Scotland Yard. DI Lestrade. I had nearly forgotten you two were mates.'

In some ways, John had forgotten it, too. Lestrade's had been one of the first names he had deleted from his mobile, not long after Mycroft's but before Molly's. The number must have come up as _Unknown Caller_. So he was surprised by the feeling of gratitude that overcame him. Lestrade. He knew. He was searching for him, surely. He just had to hold on a little longer.

Moran seemed to read his thoughts; he must have seen the dim light of hope enter John's eyes. 'I wouldn't put my money on _that_ horse, John. The race is fixed.' To his men, Moran said in an undertone, 'But we can use this.'

**Friday, 11.21 hrs**

His lips were cracked and his throat felt like a rusted tin can. He asked for drink, and they dragged him to the stainless steel sinks, already filled with murky water. Maybe not water. It looked like it had been sitting for weeks, maybe longer, and it smelt rancid. 'Drink deep, Johnny boy,' they said, and pushed his head under. He flailed his legs and jerked his shoulders. The seconds ticked by, and his lungs burned, aching for air, a burning that spread throughout his body. Soon he couldn't stand it. He opened his mouth to shout, and a large air bubble roiled the dark water, which retreated into his mouth, souring his tongue and throat. At long last, they lifted him out again, gasping, spluttering, unable to draw proper air.

'Ready to talk?' asked Lex snidely.

John only tried to breathe, and when the cold, rancid water pouring down his face fell into his mouth, he tried to swallow, choked, and tried to swallow again.

'Again,' said Moran.

**Friday, 14.29 hrs**

John shivered when they pulled off his shoes and socks and tossed them into a corner. In the cold air, his shirt had not quite dried from their repeated attempts to drown him.

Moran tipped the chair backwards to where Daz encircled John in his arms, rubbing his chest through the damp shirt. Meanwhile, Moran lifted a leg to examine the bottom of his foot.

'You've gotten soft down there,' he said. 'No longer the calloused feet of a soldier, are they? Pity.'

Then he took a knife and slashed each foot: ball, arch, and heel. John cried aloud at each cut, and he trembled in Daz's arms. 'To keep you from running,' Moran said, just before he poured bleach into the wounds.

**Friday, 21.48 hrs**

At the end of the day, Moran carved Sherlock another gift.

**Saturday–Sunday**

The fourth and fifth days melded into one another, punctuated with acts of violence that left his muscles quivering and a body aching for relief. Beatings, strangling, drowning, cutting, and burning—the flame from a lighter to the elbow, under the chin, against the palm. His blood was streaked on the tiles, smeared on the tables, splattered on the walls.

At last, Moran gave him clean water but made him drink from a dog dish, on his knees, his arms bound behind him. 'You're liking this, aren't you, Daz?' said Moran with a laugh as John bent himself low to the ground to drink.

They gave him food too, black beans one day, diced tomatoes another, each from a tin, and they watched him slurp them up off the cold tiled floor.

'That's right, eat up. We don't want you to keel over prematurely. What do they call it, doc? When you don't get enough vitamin C?'

'Scurvy,' said John. _Symptoms include malaise, lethargy, shortness of breath, bone pain, gum disease, susceptibility to bruising._ He was unsure why he remembered that. Scurvy wasn't a typical problem in Britain, and he knew he didn't have it.

'See? He does know how to answer questions,' said Lex. 'How long's it take to set in, John?'

'Weeks. One to three months.'

'Think we'll get to see it?'

John sat back on his knees, watery tomato juice dripping down his chin, staining the bristles of his three-day beard. 'Not if you keep feeding me tomatoes.'

'How 'bout that?' said Moran, reading the label on the tin. 'Lots of vitamin C in this. See how we take care of you, Johnny boy?'

'I'll be suffering malnutrition long before I get scurvy. If I don't die of dehydration first.'

Moran tsked. 'Doesn't need to be that way.' He walked over to John and placed an affectionate hand on the top of his bruised head. John made to pull away, but Moran was insistent. He gripped his head and pressed it to his hip. 'There now, don't fight. It's always better when you don't fight.' His middle finger teased at the corner of John's bruised lips. 'You know what Jim told me? About you?'

John didn't want to hear it and didn't answer. He remained perfectly still.

'He said, "John's a lonely man. Lonely as they come. Even lonelier than Sherlock Holmes, because John _feels_ loneliness. It kneads him like your mum kneads dough. Presses into the flesh until bruises flower on your skin. Sherlock, why, he just steps around it, pretends it's not there. Sherlock doesn't need John, not the way John needs Sherlock. In the end, that's what will make John so easy to break down. Lonely men can't stand on their own for very long." Now isn't that a sad statement, John? Isn't it _tragic_, how Sherlock is out there, footloose and fancy free, while you're in here, all alone, not a soul looking for you, caring about you—certainly not _him_—and yet you're hell bent on protecting him?'

John's jaw was clenched so tightly it hurt. _But he did find me_, he thought. _Twice. I'm the one who left _him_ alone in the end._

Moran laughed softly. 'You two. So easy to pull apart, piece by piece.'

John unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. 'And yet, in the end, it was Moriarty that got a bullet in the brain.'

It happened in a blink. Moran grabbed the collar of his shirt and a fistful of sleeve and threw John hard to the floor. His nose smashed sideways against the concrete-hard tiles with a pop. Before his sluggish mind could register what that sound meant, Moran kicked him hard in the ribs, again, again. He felt the ribs snap and curled in on himself, his arms wrenching painfully behind him as they twisted in their sockets. He rolled, but Moran was in a rage. He advanced on John, kicking his back, his sides, his legs, and at last his face. Blood spurted from his mouth and nose across the tiles, and he was still.

Moran panted heavily above him. Then he turned sharply on his heel and began to stride toward the exit. Before he left, he barked out, 'Gag him. And lock him in the freezer.'


	6. Chapter 6: The Apparition

**Chapter 6: The Apparition**

**DAY 5**

**Sunday, 23.11 hrs**

Lestrade's key fiddled uselessly against the lock before sliding inside. The porch light had burned out weeks ago, and he hadn't gotten around to replacing it. In any case, he couldn't blame the dark entirely. He was exhausted, and even the tiny muscles in his fingers protested any work as dexterous as inserting a key in the lock. The door swung open with a groan, and he echoed it as he entered his house, shrugged out of his coat, and dropped it on the floor, having missed the hook.

_A drink_, he thought, stumbling through the hallway toward the kitchen without bothering to turn on any lights, _and then five straight hours of sleep. Maybe six._

His mind was still turning with the insipid details of the case, their unsatisfying implications. Mrs Vander Maten hadn't killed her husband. That much was certain, what with the new evidence Molly had uncovered. And it wasn't the son. He had a pretty damn good alibi, having been in Dusseldorf at the time.

But really, he was struggling to dredge up much enthusiasm for the case. It would be solved, given time. Something would come up. They'd arrest the right perp and turn it over to the barristers to sort out. Right now, there was only one case that he considered of any importance, and he was far from cracking it.

He had spent the first half of the day going through the motions with the Vander Maten murder, Donovan clucking and sighing at him all the while, clearly not blind to his distraction. But the moment he was clear of her—sending her off to deal with the hounding reporters and to question other witnesses—he went off on his own to talk to the London Black Cab Service. They wouldn't give him access to any of their records, not without a warrant from the magistrate, and he couldn't get one of those without Pitt's approval, which he was sure _never_ to get, given that this wasn't even his case.

He was afraid he had reached a dead end of what he could uncover on his own. So he had spent the last three hours hacking into and secretly raiding O'Higgins files on John Watson's case. Evidently, the interviews with nurses and surgeons at St Elizabeth's hadn't been very fruitful. All that had been established was that John was a highly capable doctor, well-liked by staff and patients alike, and always reliable. His not showing up on time for a surgery was very uncharacteristic. Other than that, no one knew much. They rarely socialised outside of work, not even for a pint or at the Christmas parties, which he had never attended. He was a private man, they said, and not many were even aware that he was dating someone (one of the nurses, apparently, had just had her hopes dashed). Talented, professional, but private.

So Lestrade turned to information recovered from John's laptop. Again, nothing, nothing of importance. He was surprised that they hadn't flagged the purchase of the ring. Surely, they had checked his credit card statements? Bank transactions? That would at least put them on the same trail! Was O'Higgins really so incompetent? It was disheartening to see that _he_ was actually closer to tracking John all by himself than was the man assigned the case with full Scotland Yard resources and a team at his disposal.

Now, he needed a reboot. He flicked on a low lamp in the sitting room, then shuffled into the dark kitchen where he opened the fridge door and reached for a beer. One beer, then sleep. Probably on the sofa. He didn't often bother climbing up the stairs these days, not when he came home so tired and there was no one up there waiting for him. The sofa would do.

But when he turned from the kitchen toward the sitting room, he started—every muscle in his body jumped. He dropped the beer, unopened, which rolled to the foot of a man standing in the centre of his sitting room, a tall man, thin and angular, with pale skin and dark, curly hair. He wore black trousers and a simple, dark-blue collared shirt, its sleeves rolled to the elbows. And he stood there without compunction, weight evenly distributed between both legs, and thumbs hooked in the pockets of his trousers. Staring at him. Lestrade felt frozen, every joint and muscle, even his heart, and his breath stuck in his chest.

'Lestrade.'

The deep, resonant voice shook him from his paralysis but not his shock, which suddenly seemed to be crashing down upon him with the weight of a mountain. 'Oh jesus, jesus, jesus,' he said, stumbling until his back met the doorjamb. It was later than he had thought. He needed sleep—his dreams were pressing into his waking hours. Hallucinations. That's what they called them. Delusions.

'Lestrade, calm down,' said the apparition, stepping forward.

'Oh jesus, _god_, oh jesus!' He couldn't control his tongue.

'Stop it.'

'I'm mad. It's actually happened, I've gone mad.' He shielded his eyes as if the man in the room were too bright to look at, and with the other hand groped for the light switch.

The other man got there first, hit the light, and the room was fully illuminated. Lestrade looked at the face of the man in the full light, and it was so clear, every detail so clear and familiar and _real_ that he couldn't take it. He wanted to scream. 'No no no,' he said, 'this isn't happening. _You_ aren't happening. It's impossible! You're dead!'

The apparition rolled its eyes. 'Evidently, I'm not.' Then it reached down to the floor to pick up the beer. 'Tea, I think,' it said, tossing him the beer, 'would be better. You'll want to be awake for this.'

'Tea?' he said, his voice a squeak.

The man walked past him and into the kitchen. 'Yes, _tea_. I trust your ears work as well as they did before.' He grabbed the pot to fill it with water while Lestrade looked on, dumbfounded, and watched as a man who had been dead three years turned on the electric kettle, opened his drawers for tea packets, and rummaged through his cupboards for teacups . . . making tea.

Lestrade found his voice. 'Sherlock?'

The man—Sherlock Holmes—stopped moving and looked at him. 'Greg.'

What else was he to say? What does a man say to a ghost? A barrage of questions and profanities fought their way to the front of his mouth but bottlenecked in his throat. Only one got through: 'What are you doing here?'

'John,' said Sherlock. Lestrade simply stared, his overworked and newly stressed mind unable to make the simple mental leap on its own. So Sherlock constructed the bridge: 'Molly texted. She told me John's gone missing. I know you're working the case, but you're too slow, and O'Higgins is an idiot. You need me.'

'Molly?'

'Yes, are you not hearing me? What's the matter with you?'

For a moment, Lestrade just stared, incredulous, dumbfounded. Then: 'God, let me think. _You're alive_. You're— Sherlock, you jumped off a building! John saw it, dozens of people saw it! You were pronounced dead at the scene! I've been to your gravesite! I had to go to _grief counseling_, for god's sake, just to keep my job, and . . . _Molly?_'

'Yes, Molly. I needed her to help me fake my death. Obvious. Now, enough _nattering_—'

'Nattering!'

'—tell me what you know about John. Everything. I need details.'

'He's . . . he's missing.'

'Details, Lestrade!'

Lestrade found that the only way to cope with the turmoil of emotions he was currently experiencing was simply not to look at them. He started talking, a detective inspector debriefing a member of his team (he couldn't allow himself to think of Sherlock as a consulting detective, like it was three years ago, he just _couldn't_), walking him through the timeline he had reconstructed, what he knew about John's current lifestyle, and what little more he had guessed. Sherlock sipped his tea and listened, and when his cup was empty he began to pace, tapping his fingers together, occasionally telling Lestrade to repeat something he had said, or to clarify something, or to consider a more appropriate word for what he meant. But other than that, he just listened.

When he was finished, Lestrade took a drink; by now, his tea had cooled considerably. 'If I had my usual resources, I could, I don't know, do more. I might _know_ more. Hell, I might already have found him by now. But like I said, I feel like I'm rolling on borrowed fuel.'

Sherlock waved away his concern. 'Never mind that. You've got me.'

Lestrade allowed himself to laugh, just a little. 'I have, haven't I?' Was he really having this conversation? He spread his hands, beseechingly. 'That's all I know.'

'As ever, Lestrade, you've put your pedestrian brain to the task and overlooked everything important.'

He would never admit it, but he had missed Sherlock's insults. 'Enlighten me, then. What did I not _see_?'

'In your case, it's not a matter of _seeing_, it's a matter of _thinking_. You're not asking the right questions. _Why would John disappear?_ Well, he didn't leave on his own. No man planning a proposal would buy an engagement ring, text a love note to his girlfriend, and hop the next flight out of the country. He didn't choose to disappear. He was _made _to disappear. Circumstances beyond his control. Now, we can rule out natural disasters, car crashes, and manholes, and gang violence is also highly unlikely, given his last known location. What did he do? Something perfectly ordinary: He took a cab, a cab that never arrived at St Elizabeth's. Conclusion? Kidnapping. Now, there are only two possibilities here. The cabbie was hijacked, or he was a part of the conspiracy. Yes, a conspiracy. This was _planned_, Lestrade, and neatly, and John never saw it coming. But there've been no reports of missing or dead cabbies, so the latter is most likely. In fact, I'm sure of it. Two questions left: _why_ and _who_? The kidnappers—and how do I know there were multiple? Because otherwise John would have fought his way clear of just one, and probably two, because he's a fighter, and a good one; I'm guessing there were at least three, if not more—the kidnappers have not made the abduction known. They haven't contacted Scotland Yard with a _hostage_, they haven't demanded a _ransom_. This is about John. John was targeted, John _specifically_. So why? They want something from him. He's not a man of means, nor does he have wealthy associates, so it's not about money. What's the only other valuable thing a man is abducted for? Information. John _knows_ something, something he would be unwilling to give up. What, I don't know. But the _real_ question is who. _Who_ wants it? A disgruntled patient? A former military associate? Both unlikely. But _someone_ with the means of orchestrating a kidnapping. If this information is very valuable, then John is not likely to give it up very easily, and it is reasonable to assume that the kidnappers would go to any lengths to get it.'

'You mean torture.'

He took Sherlock's silent pacing as affirmation.

'John hasn't given it up yet,' Lestrade surmised. 'He must be holding out. Unless he did give in, told them everything they want to know, and they . . . but we've no reason to suspect that.'

'It's a perfectly reasonable suspicion,' Sherlock countered. 'Depending on the methods used, the kidnapper's control or lack thereof, John's tolerance for pain . . .' He stopped when he saw the look on Lestrade's face. 'But true. There's no direct evidence to suggest they've killed him.'

'God, Sherlock. I'll be sure not to let you anywhere near Mary.'

Sherlock's whole body froze. 'Mary.'

'John's girlfriend.'

'I know who she is,' Sherlock said impatiently. He flew into sudden animation, grabbing a coat off the back of a chair and heading for the front door.

'Sherlock!'

'We're taking your car. I'm driving. Get Mary on your phone _right now_, and tell her to bolt her doors. Tell her not to open them for _anyone_, not until she's heard from you again.'

Lestrade made no objections. He tossed Sherlock the keys and dug his mobile out of his pocket. All thoughts of sleep had long since fled. He stepped out into the night, suddenly and quite unexpectedly on a case with Sherlock Holmes.


	7. Chapter 7: The Scorched Kettle

**Chapter 7: The Scorched Kettle**

**DAY 6**

**Monday, 00.27 hrs**

Lestrade gave only two directions before Sherlock snapped at him, saying, 'I know the address.'

'Oh. Right.' Lestrade glanced down at his phone. Mary hadn't answered. He couldn't shake the feeling that the late hour had nothing to do with it. 'So what's that all about then, eh? Keeping an eye on John from beyond the grave?'

'Don't be absurd.' He zipped around a corner without minding the red light.

'Jesus, Sherlock.' Lestrade pressed his foot down on the imaginary brake on the passenger side. He took a deep breath to steady himself. 'Fine then. How do you know where to go? Molly?'

'Molly? What? No! What do you think she was, my informant? Molly knew she wasn't to contact me unless— Look, it's not _important_ right now. What's important is solving the case. Fix your mind on _that_, inspector.'

'You keep calling it that, "the case", but this is more than just some _case_. I've had plenty of cases over the last three years, bizarre ones too, right up your alley, that I could have used you on. _Those _were just _cases_. Important to someone, yeah, but this one is important to _you_. It's _John_, for Christ's sake. What else would have brought you back from the dead?'

Sherlock didn't answer. His eyes were narrowed on the road, and his hands, at ten and two, were bloodless in their grip. It was a side of Sherlock that Lestrade had always believed existed, but he had never really seen it for himself: someone he cared about was in danger, and Sherlock was worried. More than worried. Just a step or two away from full-blown panic.

'Is this what had to happen for you to come back? John Watson in mortal peril?' When Sherlock continued in stony silence, not telling him to shut up or insulting his brain functionality, he pressed on. 'I'm just curious if it had been anyone else. Your brother, say, or Molly, who you apparently had a better relationship with than I knew, or . . . Hell, I'm not saying you ever thought of _me_ as one of your mates, but—'

'Don't be stupid. I jumped off a building for you. There's an implication for friendship in there somewhere.'

Lestrade crooked his head so quickly he pinched a nerve. 'What did you say?'

'Though to be fair, it was for Mrs Hudson too. Now, if you _don't mind_, I'm _thinking_.'

Then he didn't speak another word for the rest of the drive, leaving Lestrade's mind spinning. _I jumped off a building for you_?_ What?_ It didn't make sense. Why _had _Sherlock jumped? Toss that—how had he _survived_? And why had he let the charade of being dead continue for three years?

Presumably, he had intended never to return, to let his life as Sherlock Holmes terminate with the smear that he had been a fake all along, that he had murdered a man on the roof before jumping to his own death. But it didn't make _sense_. Lestrade knew of no man prouder than Sherlock, _vainer _than Sherlock. He had jumped at every possible opportunity to let people know he was the most brilliant man in the room and riled like an offended rooster if anyone so much as hinted at their doubt of it. So why had he been contented with such a tarnished reputation? _I jumped off a building for you_. What the hell?

Sherlock parked on the corner, two streets from John and Mary's building. When he stepped out of the car, he tossed back the keys.

'2A, is it?' said Sherlock as they strode along. The question felt like a weedy attempt at including Lestrade in something he was perfectly capable of doing on his own. Nevertheless, it felt almost like an apology, so he took it.

'That's right,' said Lestrade. He looked up to the second floor and felt a rush of relief: light shone through the window. 'There, on the left. That's the one.'

'Go on, then,' said Sherlock, standing aside for Lestrade to push the buzzer. 'Tell her,' he said, 'to pack a bag, quickly. Then take her to a safe house, put her with someone that you _trust_.'

'You don't want to talk to her?'

Sherlock's returned comment was a raised eyebrow. 'When you leave with her, find a way to leave the door unlocked. I need to look around, and I'd prefer not break any windows.'

'Hold on, how do I contact you?'

'I'll text you.'

Lestrade sighed, staring at the buzzer. 'She's not answering.'

Sherlock reached forward and buzzed it himself, holding it down for a good five seconds. At Lestrade's look, which said _overkill_, he retorted, 'Hard to ignore.'

But another minute passed, and Mary had not responded. That's when Lestrade saw Sherlock's face, so hardened, suddenly split into a toothy smile, and he waggled his fingers down near his hip and cocked his head. Lestrade stared in bafflement, and it wasn't until Sherlock started mouthing an exaggerated _go on, go on_ and gesturing with his head that he realised Sherlock was looking past him. He turned and saw, through the parted curtains of the window of one of the ground-floor flats, a young girl, maybe four or five years old and wearing a nightdress with a cartoon frog on front, watching them. Sherlock continued to charm her until a smile broke out, she nodded, and a moment later scampered away from the window to hit the buzzer.

'Sherlock,' said Lestrade, half admonishing, half amused.

'What? We need to get inside.'

'Teaching her to let in strangers . . .' he grumbled.

They passed into the hallway and climbed the stairs. 'I don't know how we expect to get into her flat, though,' said Lestrade, a second before Sherlock turned the handle and pushed open the door.

'It's easy when it's not locked,' he said. 'Go inside, see if she's there.'

Not locked. That felt like a bad sign. Lestrade poked his head in. 'Ms Morstan?' he called. Then he listened for footsteps, the sound of a shower or a telly. Nothing. So he entered the flat anxiously, leaving Sherlock to loiter on the landing. He made a quick sweep—sitting room, kitchen, bedroom—and called, 'Empty!'

Sherlock walked in as though an empty flat were exactly what he had expected to find and pulled the door closed behind him.

'She may have stepped out,' said Lestrade reasonably, though he felt a foreboding deep in his gut.

'Without her keys?' said Sherlock, picking up a set from a dish by the door. 'Her phone?' He pointed to the coffee table. 'Having left the light on?'

'People leave lights on.'

'Oh please, look at this flat. The DVDs are sorted alphabetically, _Amadeus_ to _Y Tu Mamá También_. Houseplant, _trimmed_, not just watered. Potted herb garden in the window. The curtains, handmade, but they're made of twill damask, so not cheap. Implies _care_. She cares for this place, she's tidy, she's thoughtful. And there: telly's unplugged. Saving on electricity. She didn't just _leave the light on_.' He sniffed. 'Something's burning.'

Lestrade followed him into the kitchen. On the cooker, the kettle was smoking. Sherlock grabbed a tea cosy, lifted it off the burner, and flicked off the cooker. 'She's been gone fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. _Damn_. We just missed her!'

'How—?'

'The water! She set the kettle to boil, making herself some tea. And of course, why not? The woman can't sleep, hasn't slept well at all since he went missing. But she never got around to making it. Look.' He picked up a packet of chamomile tea, unopened, and waved it in Lestrade's face. 'Didn't have time. Why? She was distracted. It wasn't your phone call. That was, what? Ten minutes ago? She never got it. No, it was something else. Someone came to the flat.' He paced back to the front door. 'She leaves the water to boil and answers the buzzer. Lets them in. Why? It was someone she trusted—or someone _pretending_ to be someone she trusted—so she buzzes them up. But when she opens the door . . . They take her. Nine or ten minutes later, the water evaporates. If she would have invested in an electric kettle, it would have turned itself off; but no, Mary's old-fashioned—you saw the curtains—and likes to boil water on the cooker. Without the conductivity of water, the kettle overheats. Scorches. All told, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. _Damn_.'

'Now, we can't be _sure_ it was them. The kidnappers, I mean. You're jumping to conclusions, Sherlock.'

'I'm making well-reasoned _deductions_. It's midnight, a time when she is certain to be home but no one will see her taken. They couldn't risk another broad daylight abduction. John's had been carefully orchestrated. Hers, an adjustment to a plan that must not be working.'

'Adjustment—' He stopped himself, already knowing the answer. 'They're going to use her to get John to talk,' he said. 'Oh god . . .'

'No sign of a struggle in the flat.' Sherlock opened the front door and bent over, examining the doorjamb. 'No sign of forced entry.' He ran his finger along the wood. 'She trusted them, at first. But if she had followed them out of the flat, she would have grabbed her keys. So she was apprehended.' In two long strides, he was to the wall, staring at the pictures of Mary and John. 'She's small. Five-two, maybe, to John's five-seven. It would have been easy.' He turned to Lestrade. 'A picture is missing from this wall. What was it?'

'Come again?'

'_Picture_, a photograph, framed. It's missing.'

'How do you know?'

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed out his exasperation. 'There,' he said, pointing to the edge of the collage, 'a nail in the wall, but no picture. Probably a five-by-seven, given the space provided by the other photos. You said you came here last Friday, looked around?'

'Yes. I asked Mary for a photo of John, and she gave me one from the bedroom. It wasn't one of these.'

'So you _did _see these photographs, then. Which one is gone?'

'I don't know, Sherlock, there are fifteen photographs or so on that wall—'

'Eighteen _now_.'

'—how am I to remember the details of each one?'

Sherlock unclenched his jaw. Staring hard at Lestrade and not at the wall, he began ticking them off on his fingers. 'Mary in a blue gown at a friend's wedding, John in a green jumper at a pub, John and Mary in hideously matching jumpers at a party, Stonehenge in the spring—'

'Yes, all right, _all right_. You're better at this than me, I got it! I don't remember what _that _one was of. But why would the kidnappers take a photograph off the wall?'

'If we knew what the photograph _was_, we might have some idea.'

Lestrade shook his head, pulling out his mobile. 'Another person gone missing, probably the same kidnappers. O'Higgins needs to know about this. He doesn't even know it's a kidnapping to start with, not really. I can't be running this thing on my own anymore—'

'_No_.'

Lestrade froze, his finger hovering over the send button for O'Higgins' mobile.

'Not like that. Call the police, if you must, alert them to Mary Morstan's disappearance, but make the call anonymous. You heard noises, saw a shadow, something to bring in them in. Your lot will join the dots quickly enough to the other case.'

'_John's _case,' Lestrade corrected under his breath. Then, 'They'll trace the call. They'll know it's me. I may as well fess up—'

'Oh for God's sake,' said Sherlock, pulling a mobile out of his coat. 'Mine's untraceable.' He punched 999. His next words came out in an overly polite and high-pitched Edinburgh accent. 'Yes, hullo, sorry to be calling so late at night, but I've just overheard a wee bit of a scuttle from the flat above me. Couple having a bit of a domestic or summat, aye. S'all quiet now, but oh lordy, I'm afraid something awful's happened.' Lestrade stared at him in big-eyed wonder. 'Aye, thank you. 116 Porters Avenue, flat number 2A.'

He pocketed the phone, and when he spoke again, the deep timbre was back. 'We'd best be off.'

'They'll question the tenants in the flat below this one, you know,' said Lestrade, berating him to offset how unnerved and simultaneously deeply impressed he was.

'They'll have a spot of trouble doing that, as those tenants are on holiday in the Canary Islands.'

Lestrade didn't bother asking how he knew.

**Monday, 05.46 hrs**

The freezer was cold only insofar as the entire building was cold—it wasn't turned on. It was large, a walk-in freezer, probably once used to store large cuts of meat, suspended from the ceiling. John had seen the hooks above his head in the moment before they closed the heavy stainless steel door, throwing him into utter blackness. On the other side, he had heard them fit a lock. The freezer was now his prison.

But though it was impossible for him to escape, they were taking no chances that he would attack them the next time they opened the door, and he had been bound, once again, at the wrists, but this time, not with handcuffs. Instead, Moran had used wire, thin and silver, wrapped severally around his joined wrists, palms facing. These wire cuffs were then locked with a thin chain to the base of a metal shelf, which was welded into the floor. Now, with every pull, every twist, and every slide of his wrists, the wire bit deeper and deeper into the skin on one side or the other, forcing him to remain still on the floor. If he was not relieved of them soon, he knew the wire would start acting like a knife in his skin. Already, he wondered if he were not bleeding: the pain was raw and sharp.

And he had been gagged. Beneath the sink, they had found old rags and cleaning solutions, including the bleach they had poured on his slashed feet. Taking one of the rags, they dipped it in ammonia, wringed it until it stopped dripping, then twisted it tightly around John's head. It fitted between his teeth and stretched his cheeks. Before long, he could feel the chemical burns on the skin of his lips and cheeks, and for hours, every breath scoured his throat and made him want to vomit. The only things preventing this were the thought of bile reaching his gagged mouth, and a mostly empty stomach. The gag made breathing difficult, and swallowing nearly impossible.

His nose was broken; he was sure of it. He spent the first hour or two in the darkness of the freezer feeling the warm blood slide backward down his throat. Once, he touched it, dipping his head so that the unbroken fingers of his right hand could gingerly feel for a break. But the pain had been too much to properly explore. His broken ribs (the 7th and the 10th, he guessed) also caused searing fire to his sides, but, aside from the gag, his breathing had not been effected, so he ruled out the possibility of a punctured lung. His fingers and toes were numb with cold.

He'd been removed from the freezer only once, when Moran had given him Sherlock's fifth gift. The back of his shirt, by now, was saturated with his own blood.

Was Lestrade still looking? Was he anywhere close? And if he did find this basement kitchen—was this an old hotel? a factory? something else?—would he think to check the padlocked freezer? Sherlock would. Sherlock would have already found . . .

John shuddered when he allowed himself think the name again. _Sherlock_. For so long, he had refused to speak it. It had hurt too much. Eventually, he didn't even think it. Only _him_. Only _back then_. Or _before_. But now, in that dark, quiet space, all alone, he felt the sharpness of losing his best friend in a way he hadn't been able to before. It became more real, somehow, this void in John's life, knowing that Sherlock wasn't on the case, that no single burst of incisive deductions and a bit of running about London would lead someone to this place where John was. And it was his own fault.

Mycroft Holmes had been right: John should have been there. He should have never left Sherlock's side, not for one moment on that crucial day, not when Sherlock told him to take another cab, not when Sherlock insisted on going alone, and not even when Sherlock had used the ruse that Mrs Hudson had been shot._ He should have been there_, on that roof, confronting that psychopath Moriarty right alongside him. He should have protected Sherlock, somehow, from the mind-game machinations that had put him on the edge of that roof; he should have pulled Sherlock away from that edge. If it had come down to it, John would have jumped himself. He would have taken a bullet. It was only right. The world needed Sherlock Holmes, a man with a singularly spectacular mind, and a surprisingly human heart. It didn't need another John Watson.

On the other side of the door, there came a scraping sound, the twirling of the padlock, then the groan of the door. The flicking fluorescent light from beyond his dark prison burned his eyes.

'Morning Johnny,' said Moran. His voice had that dangerous softness in it that John had already learned to abhor. 'I have a present for you.' Then, to Daz, 'Bring him out.'

For a moment, Daz's large body blocked the light as he advanced on John. Then he knelt down at John's side to unlock the chain binding the wire to the floor. When he was finished, his eyes trailed down John's body, from eyes to crotch, and stopped. Daz smiled, and he placed an eager hand.

John's leg jerked.

'Come on, come on,' said Moran, slapping the wall of the freezer. 'Help him up. Let's get this started.'

Daz dragged John to his sore feet by the front of his already torn shirt. He could feel the wounds splitting beneath his weight, reopening, and he legs almost gave out. Then Daz gave him a firm shove, and John stumbled forward, ramming his shoulder into the door, and if it hadn't been for Moran standing there to right him, he would have quickly found himself on the floor again. Moran placed a hand on the back of his neck and guided him, returning him to the chair. He fell into it, feet bleeding anew and hands shaking with the ring burning around his wrists, He looked down and saw that a thin line on his raw left wrist was beading with blood. A soft trail of bloody footprints led back to the freezer.

'Brought you a present, Johnny boy,' Moran repeated. 'Want to guess what it is?'

John was not about to play his game. His teeth gnawed uselessly at the gag and he breathed laboriously through his swollen nose.

'Take that off him, Daz,' said Moran. 'I want to hear him talk.'

The gag was removed. John swallowed, coughed.

'If you guess right, you can have some water.'

'You mean water isn't the present?' he asked acerbically. He sounded as though his vocal cords were scratching against one another.

'Water is the reward for playing a good game. You're no Sherlock Holmes, but I think you stand a fair shot at getting this one right. Need a hint? Lex, let's give him a hint.'

Lex hopped off the table where he had been sitting. Something was wound around his fisted hand, and as he drew nearer to John, a smirk slashed across his ugly face, he unwrapped it like yarn from a spool and held it before John's eyes. It was hair. Human hair. Long, straight, and ginger. It smelled of Suave.

John felt his heart seize within his breast. 'Mary,' he whispered.

Moran threw back his head and laughed. 'What do you know! Got it on the first try!'

Lex took a deep sniff of the hair and rubbed it against his cheek, his eyes dancing wildly.

'Bastards!' John shouted in fury. 'You bloody sons of bitches!' His eyes began to burn, and it had nothing to do with the pain pulsing throughout his body.

'How 'bout that water?'

'What've you done to her?'

'She's perfectly all right, Johnny boy. A little more shorn than you're used to seeing her, perhaps, but otherwise entirely sound. Lex, go tell Pete to bring in Ms Morstan.'

Lex dropped the hair on the table, flashed John another smirk, and left the room.

'If you hurt her, by god, I swear, I'll—'

'Johnny, Johnny, what did I tell you? This is a _present_. Me to you. I thought you might appreciate getting to see the love of your life. One. Last. Time.' He slid open a drawer in one of the long tables and pulled out the rolled canvas of Pete's assortment of tools. He spread it out like a surgeon's tray.

'Please no. Please. Whatever you want from me, whatever you want to know, I'll tell you, anything.'

'There's only one thing I want to know.'

John's head bobbed up and down. 'Yes, I know. Sherlock.'

'Well?'

'I swear to you, if I knew, if I knew _anything_—'

'Ah, here she is!'

John looked and saw his Mary walking forward in the flickering light, flanked on either side by Pete and Lex. She wore pyjama bottoms and one of John's old t-shirts, which she habitually slept in. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, probably in the same set of handcuffs John himself had been wearing, and her hair had been chopped unevenly and close to the scalp. As she came closer, John could see a scrape on her cheek and a split lip.

'Well,' said Moran, patting her delicately on the offended cheek, 'we didn't hurt her _much_. Sweet thing had to be _subdued_.'

'John!' she said with a sob, clearly horrified by the state of him. Her voice echoed in the empty basement.

'Mary, Mary, it's okay. It's all going to be . . . okay. I promise. I won't let them hurt you.'

'Is that so?' said Moran. 'Let's see how quickly you'll make good on that promise.' He bent down and put an arm around John's shoulder. Pointing to Mary, he said, 'Tell her, Johnny boy. Tell her why we're here. Tell sweet Mary Morstan the one itsy bitsy scrap of information you've refused to give up. Go on then.'

John opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say.

'What do they want?' said Mary softly. 'John?' Her hands trembled, jingling the silver bracelets.

He swallowed. 'They think Sherlock Holmes is alive. They don't believe me when I tell them he died three years— No!'

For when John began to deny again that Sherlock lived, Moran left his side, strode up to Mary, and struck her in the face. Her head snapped back and she cried aloud in pain. Moran spun and faced John again, his eyes dark and terrible.

'You may not care about yourself, John. You'd probably just as well die rather than give up Sherlock's hideout. But surely you're not so cold hearted as to let your girlfriend suffer.'

'Sherlock is dead! You can't—'

Moran spun and backhanded Mary across the face.

'Stop! You can't do this! I don't know any—'

He hit her again.

'God, no! No! You son of a bitch!' he sobbed.

'Can you believe this, Mary?' said Moran. 'That he would let you get hurt, rather than answer a simple question?'

Mary was crying and couldn't answer.

'One more chance, Johnny. Then I turn mean.'

John's mind spun wildly. He had to do something, he had to do _something_. He looked rapidly between Moran and Mary. Why couldn't he _think_? Because he was stupid. An average intellect. _A placid mind, straightforward, barely used._

'Very well,' said Moran with a shrug. He picked up one of his silver tools: it looked like a large cigar cutter on the end of a long handle.

'Moscow!' he cried out in desperation.

Moran paused in midstride. 'Come again?'

'Moscow, he's in Moscow.'

'Sherlock Holmes is in Moscow,' Moran repeated.

'Yes. Yes. Moscow, yes.'

Moran stepped forward, leaned close, and said in a low voice. 'Where in Moscow?'

John was perspiring heavily now. 'I . . . He didn't tell me. Moscow, that's all I know.'

'How do you contact him?'

'I . . . don't. He—he contacts me.'

Moran moved forward, and for a moment he was so close that John thought he was going to kiss him. Instead, he dragged his nose up John's cheek, inhaling. When his mouth drew level with his John's ear, he whispered, 'You're lying.' He straightened and tugged down his suit coat. 'Take her.'

Mary screamed his name as they dragged her back the way she had come.

'Mary!' he cried. 'Please, please! _Mary!_'

Her screaming echoed far down the hallway, ending only with the crashing of a door.


	8. Chapter 8: The Mole

**Chapter 8: The Mole**

**DAY 6**

**Monday, 01.13 hrs**

After leaving John and Mary's flat, Lestrade drove back to his own home with Sherlock in the passenger's seat, _thinking_. The ride was painfully silent. Occasionally, Lestrade glanced over to see if he was all right, but it was impossible to tell with the man. He slumped a little in his seat, stared out the window without blinking (his coat collar was turned up to hide his mouth), and drummed his fingers slowly on one knee. Was he sifting through and rearranging and drawing conclusions about what he knew, or was he thinking about John and Mary and what must be happening to them, like Lestrade was? He had arrived so quickly, so matter-of-factly, at the conclusion that John was both an abductee and a torture victim that it was as if he had known it all along. It was almost as if it didn't bother him, as if John's was just another case to crack. But that couldn't be true. He had come back, after all, on the scant information that John was missing, before knowing any details. If Lestrade believed Sherlock cared about anyone, it was about John, and he doubted that three years had changed that. _He had come back_.

Once inside the house, Sherlock bolted the door and closed the curtains before Lestrade had even unbuttoned his own coat. Then he strode into the study as if he were in his own house. 'Bring me your laptop,' he said, settling himself at Lestrade's desk. 'Your work laptop.'

'What are you going to do?'

Sherlock gave him a look.

'Ah hell,' said Lestrade, 'I'll be losing my job over this thing one way or another. I might as well let you hack some police files.' He unlocked a cupboard, pulled the laptop out, logged on, and passed it over to Sherlock. 'What are you looking for?'

'Whatever you missed.'

'Of course.'

Sherlock began clicking buttons.

'What do you want me to do?'

'Sleep. You're no use to me only half awake.'

'And what about you? When's the last time you slept?'

'I'm fine for a while.'

'Right.' He stood awkwardly in his own study, wavering between walking out and asking questions.

'Something to say, inspector?' Sherlock asked testily, not dragging his eyes away from the screen.

'Why yes, now that you've asked. Where the hell have you been for the last three years?'

'Not exactly the most pressing matter at hand, Lestrade.'

'Look, you don't have to give me the play-by-play. But jesus, I thought you were dead, and you suddenly being alive is a lot to handle on top of this whole kidnapping business. Can you blame me for having questions? I just want to know where you were all that time.'

'On the move. Next?'

'Fine. I'll be more specific. Where were you when Molly called?'

'Texted,' Sherlock corrected him. He paused, then said, 'Cairo.'

'Egypt?'

'No, Cairo, Illinois. _Yes_, Cairo, Egypt. Next?'

Lestrade didn't know what else to ask. What had happened on that roof and immediately thereafter were high on his list, but it didn't feel right, somehow, to ask about his apparent death. In any case, he got the impression that those were two questions Sherlock wouldn't answer him. Instead, he said, softly, 'So Molly. She was the only one . . . ?'

'Yes. And you're the second. No one else, and that's how it will stay.'

Lestrade blinked. 'What do you mean?'

'Isn't it obvious? I'm here to find John. Then I'm leaving again.'

'What? Why?'

'I'm dead, remember?'

'But . . . you're not. You don't have to live that lie anymore.'

Sherlock didn't answer, and eventually, Lestrade did turn away. He _was_ tired, and he knew he had a string of long days ahead. He bid Sherlock good night, but received no reply. But when he got into bed, he couldn't sleep. He kept wondering whether the police were doing their job properly, worrying about John, and thinking about the apparition hacking into his laptop downstairs.

**Monday, 06.48 hrs**

Sherlock was in the exact same position at the desk when Lestrade appeared the next morning, scrolling, typing, clicking. Not taking notes, though. Sherlock had never needed to.

A few hours' sleep and the light of day did not quite shake the aura of apparition from him, and Lestrade wondered fleetingly whether he would ever truly believe Sherlock had never died. He noticed a few things about him, however, that he hadn't in the commotion of the night before: his skin was tanned, not darkly, but he had definitely been exposed to a hotter sun; he had a bad nick along his jaw line, as though from a hasty shave; and a mangled scar ran along the side of his neck and up past his left ear, into his hairline.

'What's that?' Lestrade asked, pointing.

'Coffee, two sugars, thank you,' said Sherlock.

Lestrade sighed and shuffled into the kitchen. Is that was it had been like for John, living with the man? He putted in the kitchen, making coffee and toast, not even sure if Sherlock would eat the toast, and on his way back to the study, he glanced into the sitting room and saw the pillows had been stacked on one end. So Sherlock had slept, after all, if only briefly. That was good.

He set the coffee and toast at the desk. Sherlock went for the coffee. That's when he noticed something else.

'Is that my shirt?'

'Needed a change of clothes. Spent my last few pounds on the plane ticket and cab ride.'

Lestrade eyed him up and down more critically. Those were his trousers, too, fitted with his belt (more snugly than he could wear it himself). He suddenly understood why his razor had been two inches further from the sink than normal. He shrugged and sipped his coffee.

'So?' he asked. 'Learn anything?'

'Forensics team was sent to Mary's flat at five o'clock. They've named her a missing person in connection with John Watson and are treating the case with a little more urgency now. One person missing, ah well, that could be anything. But _two_ missing persons from the same flat? Now that's a pattern. Mary's abduction may prove useful after all.'

'Sherlock!'

'Glass half full, Lestrade.' He swivelled in his chair and pierced him directly with those oddly colourless eyes. '_And_. You've got a mole in New Scotland Yard.'

'_What?_'

'A mole, spy, saboteur, double agent, traitor.'

'Who!'

'I don't know, but clearly not Anderson, he's too stupid to pull it off.'

'Anderson's head of forensics now, you know.'

'What happy news. But _someone_ is following John's case, deleting files, diverting attention, planting evidence, and backtracking to cover the trail you _should_ be following.'

'Tell me.'

'John's credit card statements. They point to the purchase of a ring at Grant & Chapman's last Wednesday.'

'I know. I thought it might put them on the same trail I was following, but it hadn't been flagged.'

'It had been _unflagged_. Somebody dug deeper, but only to uncover what could be learned, not to follow a trail. Look.' He pointed to the screen. 'Timestamps have been altered, on the card, on the digital receipt—'

'But I _have_ a copy of that receipt,' said Lestrade. He dug into the pocket of his coat, which had thrown on a nearby chair the night before. 'Here. 16.51 hours last _Wednesday_.'

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, scrolling. 'So-called evidence puts him there two days earlier. They've created a timeline that never took place.'

'But why?'

'To throw you off the scent. Obviously. The surveillance video would contradict all of this, however, so it's been deleted.'

'Surveillance—?'

'Confiscated from Grant & Chapman's. Can't expect a jeweller to not have cameras. Visible ones, so visitors know they are being watched, and hidden ones, too, just in case a thief decides to take the cameras out of the equation.'

'We know about those.'

'Yes, but the police don't often know about the _third_ camera, also hidden, used to capture footage of customers close up. It's small, often hidden below the glass and disguised as jewellery. The gaudy stuff that never sells. It's all very spy-tech.'

'What for?'

'To share information with other shopkeepers, normally. Shop-talk, nothing criminal. Look out for Mrs Smith, she suffers chronic buyer's remorse and will sob if she doesn't get her refund. Mr Jones just bought another bracelet, looks like he's having another affair. They warn one another about the weirdoes.'

'So they will have a video of John. I mean, I'm not saying he's a weirdo—'

'They _do_ have video of John,' said Sherlock, opening up a new tab. 'It made it to the shopkeeper's video forum, thanks to your little visit. I hacked in about an hour ago.'

It was under a post titled 'Something Fishy With This Guy,' followed by a brief narrative:

_So this bloke comes into my shop Wednesday afternoon, says he's looking for an engagement ring or whatnot. Doesn't spend a lot of time looking though, like most chaps. He picks out a solitaire diamond (click link below for a pic), pays, and gets into a cab. I don't think much of it at first, but get this. Couple days go by, bloke never picks up the ring, and I get this copper showing up in my shop looking for him. Didn't say what he'd done, but I'm guessing it ain't legal. Ordinary purchase like that, capturing the attention of the police? They must have had their eye on him for a while, waiting for him to drop a few thousand pounds. I'd say drug runner, but apparently the bloke's a doctor, so not quite the type. So maybe a swindler. Check out the vid._

Sherlock clicked the play button on the uploaded video. The picture quality wasn't the sharpest, but John was unmistakable. They watched for a few minutes in silence as John walked down the glass case, asked his questions, handled a couple of rings, and then made his purchase. Only once, out of the corner of his eye, did Lestrade dare to catch a glimpse of Sherlock's expression. He looked, for lack of a more complex word, sad. It occurred to Lestrade that this was the first he had seen of John in more than three years: a low-quality, poorly angled video of the last minutes John had been safe and happy.

When John walked out of the shop, the timestamp in the corner read 16.52. The date read the previous Wednesday.

'A different video,' Sherlock said, 'places John in Croydon late Thursday morning, and another in Ashford Thursday afternoon.'

'But that's . . . not possible.'

'They've been doctored. _Planted_. Someone has been holding onto these videos, _intending_ to create a different scenario that points _away _from kidnapping.'

'They're making it look like he's running. And doing what—fleeing to France?'

'Precisely. This has been in the works for a while. John Watson disappears, is suspected of having fled to France, and in time the case goes cold.'

'But now there's Mary.'

Sherlock's eyes were bright. 'Now there's Mary. _Two _disappearances, Lestrade, and a 999 call suggesting violence. They can't simply write her into the flee-the-country narrative, not with a call like that.'

Lestrade slapped his hand on the desk, causing Sherlock to lift his hands from the keyboard and raise his eyebrows in mild surprise. '_I _should be heading this case, not that moron O'Higgins! And I'm stuck on the ridiculous Vander Maten murder.'

'Speaking of which, you should get back to the Yard. You have a job to do, after all.' When Lestrade only stared at him, astounded, he continued, 'You have the appearance of good-cop to maintain. I, on the other hand, am a ghost, and can go where I will.'

'Which is where?'

He was already slipping back into his coat, which was actually Lestrade's. 'Wherever the trail leads. And I'll manage without the Yard's resources.'

'Will you, you know, contact me if you find something?'

Sherlock gave him a look that made him feel stupid for asking.

'And what if I need to get a hold of you?'

'I've already programmed my number into your phone. It's under Doyle.'

'Right.' He fished inside his pocket for his keys. 'Let me give you a spare—'

'No need, inspector. I have the one you hide under the loose brick in the walkway.'

'Bloody hell.'

**Monday, 15.14 hrs**

Alone in the forensics lab, Anderson ran an agitated hand through his hair after triple-checking the results on the computer. He fretted for another two minutes before diving for his phone.

'Donovan.'

'It's me.'

He heard her sigh on the other line. Things had been tense between them ever since his wife had caught them together in her kitchen, on her kitchen table, having a different sort of dining experience. He had lied to her, said his wife had called it quits and moved out. Apparently, he had only meant that she was visiting her mum's for the weekend.

'Is this about my case? I think we have all the forensics we need.'

'No, this is about . . . something else.'

'Get on with it, then.'

'You know the missing persons case O'Higgins is leading?'

There was a pause. 'You mean John Watson?'

'That's the one.'

'What about it? You're not going to go all wonky on me too, are you? Because Lestrade's not been playing his best game since he heard.'

'No, no. _Listen_. The thing is, the bloke's girlfriend went missing early this morning. Police got a call from a neighbour, said he heard a row coming from the flat. When the police got there, the flat was empty. No forced entry or signs of violence.'

'Will you get to the point?'

'The _point_,' said Anderson, 'is that my team was called in to sweep the place for prints. I've been here in the lab, running them through the computer, and, well, I don't quite know how to say this . . .'

'_What_, Anderson?'

'The prints. I'm telling you, I've run them through the programme again and again, and a name keeps popping up . . .'

'Well?'

'It's Sherlock Holmes.'

A long pause followed this declaration; then suddenly, Donovan burst out laughing.

'I'm serious, Sally!'

'Sh— Sherlock Holmes?' she repeated, giggling through the words.

'I know it's not _possible_, but these fingerprints . . . They were on the door handle and the door, in the kitchen, on the stovetop. They match the ones we have on file for him ninety-seven percent!'

But Donovan hadn't quite overcome her moment of mirth and continued to laugh through her words. 'Do you remember the night we finally printed him? What was the charge, something silly—trespassing! That was it. Trivial, but it was enough. Oh, that scowl. If looks could kill, I'm telling you.'

'Do you hear what I'm telling you, Sally? Ninety-seven percent!'

'What you're telling me, _Anderson_, is just one more way that bloody deceitful git got one over on us. He probably found a way to hack into our files and change the records. Sounds like him, doesn't it? He was probably planning to pin some future crime on some unsuspecting sod with a real record and get off scot-free. Honestly, Anderson, use your brain some days, okay?'

'Maybe that's what he'd done,' Anderson conceded, 'but explain this one. Another set of prints also popped up, and I'm damn sure these weren't faked.'

'And they belong to . . . ?'

'DI Lestrade.'


	9. Chapter 9: Useful

_Note: This chapter contains violent and disturbing content. Please read at your own discretion._

* * *

**Chapter 9: Useful**

**DAY 6**

**Monday, 18.17 hrs**

Hours and hours had passed, and Moran had not returned. Nor had Mary. John was left with rotating guards, Pete, Lex, and Daz. Pete more or less ignored him. But when John spoke or tried to move from the chair he had not been chained to, Pete reacted: he punched him in the face or stomach, kicked him in the back or groin. Then, when Pete tired of his pleading and his questions about Mary, he took a long, thin metal rod from a drawer—a meat skewer, dull on both ends—and punched it through a pinch of skin on his neck.

'Don't talk for one hour,' he had said, in a rare moment of verbosity, 'and I'll take it out. Speak one more word and you get another stick in the other side.'

The pain was excruciating, but he bit his tongue and tried not to think of the blood running down the side of his neck, mixing with the warm sweat sliding over cold skin.

Lex was a different sort to Pete. He didn't have the courage to strike or to cut, and knowing that John wasn't tied down made him nervous; but he did seem to revel in the voyeuristic pleasures of watching a man suffer. So Moran had given him a taser.

'For if he becomes unruly,' Moran had said, handing over the taser and watching John out of the corner of his eye, a small smile on his lips. 'Or if he looks at you funny.'

It took Lex only ten minutes' being alone with him to try it out, whether out of curiosity or a demonstration of power, John wasn't sure. Probably both. He waited until John seemed most placid, walked around him in a wide arc, and then pressed the taser against the bloody shirt on his back. John's whole body seized, sensory nerves on fire, motor nerves contracting violently and beyond his control. He toppled the chair, a scream trapped behind a locked jaw, and when his body stilled again, Lex, with a chuckle and a snide remark—'It's beautiful, in a way'—tasered him again, this time in the back of the neck. When he was satisfied, and when John's body had at last stilled, he backed away and made John climb back into the chair under his own power, never mind his bound wrists, under threat of another jolt.

Then Daz began his shift. First, he had given him water, just a little from the dog dish, and watched as he crouched on the floor, elbows and knees, to drink it. He also took him to the corner to relieve himself. Unfortunately, John could barely stand, not on his slashed feet and with the cramped leg muscles, and had to rely on Daz to bear him up. With his hands being bound so tightly together, he could not even undo his own flies. To John's mortification, Daz pulled down the zip, pulled him out, and held him while he peed. And then, before putting him back inside his trousers, he had given him one long stroke with his thumb while kissing the side of his face, rubbing his nose along the hairs of his young beard. John fought but failed to suppress the flinch that ran up his body like a rake, and Daz chuckled, then returned him to the chair.

And then, Daz left. John stared around in amazement at the empty kitchen. Was this a new game? The only time he had been left alone since the cab ride was while in the freezer where it was certain he couldn't get out. But now, he wasn't even tied to the chair. What were they expecting him to do? What punishment would accompany any action? If he did nothing, would they laugh and declare that they had trapped him without binds?

He didn't get to dwell too long on these things, however. Soft footfalls were drawing nearer. To his astonishment, he looked up to see Mary walking toward him.

She came alone, her wrists no longer cuffed, and from what he could see, there were no new marks on her face or body. She walked with her head held high and her mouth a firm line. But her eyes betrayed her fear. She came to a stop a few feet in front of him.

'Mary,' he said.

'John,' she said. Instantly, tears spilled down her cheeks. 'Oh John.'

'Shh, shh, Mary. Mary, it's okay. What are you doing here?' His eyes flicked to the door and back. 'Where are they?'

'Waiting. Out there. They said . . . They said we can have five minutes. Just the two of us.' She wiped a hand under her cheek, smearing the line of tears. When he began to stretch his wired hands out for her, she shook her head and took a small step backward. Her face twisted in pain. 'I'm not allowed to touch you.'

His hands dropped. 'Did they hurt you?'

'No. That man—Sebastian—he just wanted . . . to talk. But oh John, look what they've done to you!'

'What, this?' John made a valiant effort to smile and hide his bleeding wrists in his lap. It was a pathetic gesture, given the state of his face. 'It's not so bad. They've just knocked me around a bit. Nothing I can't handle. I've known worse. In Afghanistan.'

It was not true, not even close, and Mary didn't buy it. 'John, they're looking for you. I called the police, and they're looking.'

'I know,' he said, again trying to smile at her, to show her his gratitude.

'They'll come.'

'Of course they will.'

'And your friend, Greg. He's looking too.'

John's smile slipped as he felt a sudden rush of affection for his old friend. 'You spoke to him?'

'He came to see me. I told him what I could, but I didn't know, then, that they are looking for Sherlock Holmes.' She was wringing her hands, looking suddenly and distinctly disturbed. 'Why didn't you tell me? That he is still alive?'

John frowned. 'Is that what they told you?'

'John, listen to me. They're searching for him. They're going to find him, and they'll kill him. But if you tell them where he is, they'll let us go. They've promised. Then, you can get word to him, _warn _him, before it's too late.'

'No, Mary,' he said. The desperation in her eyes was like a needle in his heart, but he couldn't allow her this false hope. 'They're lying to you. They're _lying_. I don't know why, or whether they're just crazy, but there's no one out there to warn, no one for them to find. Sherlock . . . He's dead. I saw him fall.' He swallowed and looked away, remembering and hating the images that swam before his vision. 'I saw his blood on the pavement.'

'I know—' She stopped, pressing her hands to her lips and closing her eyes. She took a deep breath. 'I know he is special to you. I know because of the hurt I see in your eyes whenever his name is spoken, whenever you try _not_ to remember. I see it even now. You love him, you want to protect him. I _know_. But sweetheart.' Her voice rose in pitch and her hands fluttered in front of her mouth as she began to cry. 'They'll kill you.'

John's eyes burned with the heat of his tears. 'They sent you in here to get me to talk.'

She let out a mangled sob and nodded.

'I love you, Mary. I love you, and I would never lie to you. Sherlock Holmes is dead.'

Her halfway controlled sobs broke through like a burst dam now, and she covered her face with her hands.

'That's enough,' said a voice at the end of the room. Moran came speedily down the aisle between tables, his men directly behind him. 'So sorry, Mary, I know you tried. And you. You disappoint me, John. You've a cold, cold heart. Take her.'

'I can't tell you what I don't know!' John shouted. 'Please. Just let her go.'

Daz and Pete grabbed Mary and began to drag her away. Lex stayed with Moran, gnawing a thumb, watching John with wild, anxious eyes. But they didn't take her out of the room. Instead, they drove her to the ground behind a table where John couldn't see.

'What are you doing? _What are you doing?_'

'You brought this upon her, Johnny,' said Moran dispassionately, cleaning his nails with the scalpel.

A second later, Mary let out a horrendous scream. John couldn't stop himself—he started to his feet. Lex lunged forward with the taser, caught him in the stomach, and jolted him with fifty thousand volts. He collapsed to the ground, Mary's scream ringing in his ears. He twitched and jerked, each scream hitting him with as much force as the voltage from the taser. Then the screaming stopped. _Don't be dead, don't be dead_, John thought. His silent prayer was answered when, with his next laboured breath, he heard her crying.

From where he lay on the floor, he saw Pete stalking toward him, his blank, detached visage utterly unnerving, for his hand was dripping red. He threw something down in front of John's face, and a splatter of blood crossed his cheek. It was a finger.

Moran tsked. 'I believe that's the one you were going to slip a ring onto.'

**Monday, 20.21 hrs**

'Kill me, please,' said John. 'Let Mary go, and just kill me.'

'How quaint. Yet how utterly predictable. Why do the noble-hearted ever try bargaining like that?' Moran asked, his voice mild and uninterested. He was seated on the edge of one of the long tables, playing with his scalpel again, flipping it in the air and catching it by the handle without fail. 'Be reasonable, John, and think it through. We let her go, she goes to the police, the police come here to collect your corpse, and yours truly doesn't have the information he started this whole rollercoaster ride for in the first place. No no no, Johnny boy, that's not how this thing plays out.'

He snapped his fingers and called out 'Oi!' to Daz, who was on the other side of the room with Mary. Obedient as a well-trained dog, Daz lifted her heavily and set her on her feet. She had wrapped her bleeding hand into end of her own shirt, which was now soaked through.

'We're long past the point where either of you walks out of here alive,' he continued. 'The question, now, is how much pain you're willing to endure, how much you're willing to make _her_ endure. The longer you hold out, the worse it gets. Tell me what I want to know, we end this today. Or do you _want_ her to die? I'll only too happily oblige.'

By the time he had finished talking, Daz was standing at his side, towering over Mary and holding her upper arm with a claw-like hand. 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary,' sang Moran, scraping out a fingernail with the point of the scalpel. 'You're making piss-poor work of your job. Our Johnny's still clamped up tighter than a puckered arse.'

Mary knew better than to retort. Her whole body was quivering from the pain, and her face had drained white from blood loss.

'Did he ever tell you, Mary,' Moran continued, 'about the kind of man Sherlock Holmes was? Mm? No? Then let me tell you. Holmes was brilliant. _Proper_ genius. That's what they say. And prideful. He touted his genius like a trophy, like a badge of honour. _Honour_, as if he had any idea was the word really meant. Up and down the countryside and on every street in London, he flaunted his quaint little deductive skills as if he were king of all England, and long live the king! We were all expected to fawn and faint and _bend_ before his majesty. This one here surely did.' He threw a thumb at John and barked out a laugh. 'But his wasn't real genius. It was so _limited_, to naming tobacco ash and identifying dust on boots and discerning what someone's jewellery said about her love life. How trivial. How utterly mundane. His little demonstrations were restricted to London, his successes announced in little London papers, his circle of friends never growing. For a man who saw himself as so large and important, he was so very small.'

John was unaware of how his right hand had balled into a fist until he felt the nails bite into his palms.

'Proper genius? Nah. He didn't even brush the edge of that elite circle. Not like my employer. Not like James Moriarty. Now _there_ was a man who knew how to wield a brain. He was a mastermind known the world over, orchestrating the affairs of men in Japan that turned the fortunes of men Mexico. He could pluck a string in China to kill a man in France. He composed symphonies, Mary. Symphonies! Notorious, feared, _respected_, but so perfectly hidden that no one, certainly not the _great Sherlock Holmes_, could ever find him, not if he didn't want to be found.

'But forgive me; I was talking about Sherlock. About how his jealousy of brilliance drove him mad. He just had to be the star pupil, mummy's favourite, teacher's pet, Britain's darling in the funny hat. Moriarty just wanted to play. And Sherlock _murdered_ him. _That_ is who Sherlock Holmes is, the kind of man your Johnny admires so desperately. A murderer. Jealous, spiteful, and ultimately, a ruddy coward.'

'He was a good man,' said John through gritted teeth, unable to keep silent. 'And Moriarty wasn't even a man. He was a snake.'

Moran sprang toward him so quickly he seemed like a cobra himself. His hand grabbed John at the throat. 'You want to say that again?'

'John, no,' said Mary.

But he didn't seem to hear her. Eyes narrowed and jaw firm, John spat it out again: '_Snake._'

A hand flew against his face; the resounding _crack_ rang throughout the kitchen.

Moran straightened, his face suddenly bright with pleasure. 'We should show Mary what we've been working on. What day is it, Johnny boy Watson? What number are we on?' John spat blood onto the floor and glared hatefully at the man. Moran only laughed. 'Lex, you hold Ms Morstan, why don't you. If she gets feisty, use the taser. I need my man Daz to help John out of his shirt.'

Daz did not crack a smile, but his eyes were suddenly alight and feral. He passed Mary off to Lex, grabbed John up by the front of his shirt, and threw him down again onto the floor. John heard Mary's muffled whimper as his head rebounded off the tiles. Then Daz was on top of him, ripping open the front of his shirt so viciously that he heard buttons skittering across the floor, and a hollow ringing as one fell into a drain. The white vest beneath was already stained with blood, particularly around the neckline.

'Cut them both off,' said Moran. He tossed Daz a knife from his toolkit, saying, 'Those wire cuffs sure make it difficult to undress.'

Daz made a notch in the hem of John's vest but set it aside, preferring to rip the fabric with his own two hands until John's entire chest was exposed. Then, looking over his shoulder with a half-grin at his boss, he rubbed his fingers along the bare skin, teasing over the cold nipples and through the coarse hairs. John turned his face away, squeezing his eyes tight.

Moran chuckled. 'Such a flirt, this one.' Then, in mock scolding, he said, 'No, Daz. Bad boy. Not yet. Just get that man out of his shirt.'

With the knife, he cut up the length of the sleeves, as the makeshift wire cuffs made it impossible to get the shirt off any other way. He worked carelessly, nicking the point of the knife into John's skin, wrist to shoulder, like perforating paper, one arm then the other. John forced the moans of pain to die in his throat, before Mary could hear them. When Daz was finished and John was naked from the waist up, he stretched John's arms above his head—his torso lay flat against John's and his lips grazed John's chin—before rolling him over; his bare chest and stomach pressed against the ice-cold tiled floor.

John heard Mary's gasp at seeing his mangled back, and he turned his head to make sure that she couldn't see his face when Moran made the first cut.

'Now then, Johnny boy,' said Moran walking over. 'Like always, the question. Will you answer it this time, before I give Sherlock yet _another_ gift?'

'Damn you,' said John; he could feel his heart pounding as if it were outside his body, lying on the floor beside him.

'That's what I thought. Fine then. Let's shut you up.' He straddled John again, but he paused before he began to carve.

'Pete, re-soak John's gag.' As Pete set to work, dipping the rag in ammonia and wringing it out, Moran, traced his wounds lightly with his middle finger and said, 'No words, just screams. I like those. Scream all you like.'

The rag was twisted and placed once again between his teeth and fitted tightly around his head. When the fumes hit his nose and throat, John tried not to retch.

Daz held John's arms, and Pete took his legs. Moran petted his back. 'Looks like we're running out of space. Ah, but _here_. Another will fit nicely.'

John felt the lightness of Moran's fingers on his left side, just at the bruised ribs. A moment later, the scalpel plunged deep into his flesh and dragged. He couldn't stop it now. He screamed out his pain into the gag, and Mary with him. Moran took his time with this one; he let the scalpel sink, twist, and jerk in his flesh, inflicting as much pain as he could with a single instrument. He went deeper than before, pulled the skin apart so the blood flowed more quickly, and when the tip of the scalpel scraped against a rib, when John thought he might faint from the pain, the pressure lifted from his backside, arms, and legs.

'How 'bout that, Mary. Ain't he beautiful?' said Moran, wiping his hands on a fresh rag.

'Bastards, you goddamn sadistic bastards!' she sobbed.

'Language, my dear. Be nice, or I'll have that filthy little tongue cut right out.'

'Why are you doing this? He doesn't know anything! He says he doesn't know!'

'You are confusing ignorance with loyalty, I'm afraid. That's what this is, Mary. Loyalty at its very deepest. That's who John Watson is at his core—a slave, a man who has bound himself heart and soul to Sherlock Holmes. And it doesn't matter who he hurts—neither his lover nor himself—as long as he remains _loyal_ to his master.'

John's head rolled on the floor, trying to shake his head _no_.

'That's it, isn't it, John? Your devotion to Sherlock Holmes is simply stronger than your love for Mary Morstan.'

'No,' he said through the gag.

'No? Then prove it. _Prove it. _Tell me where he is, right now, or I take another finger.'

John wept; his tears stung the wounds growing around his wrists.

'Two seconds. One, two. Whoops! Too slow. Okay, boys, maybe something from the right hand this time? Balance things out a little.'

Mary panicked; she struggled out of Lex's grip, lost her balance, and caught herself on the edge of a table. In that moment, before she had a chance to run, Lex rammed the taser into her side. She fell to the ground, seizing. Moran shrugged. 'Here will do fine.'

John watched in helpless horror as Pete fitted the ring that looked like a cigar clipper around her finger, and snapped cleanly through the bone.

**Monday, 23.01 hrs**

He awoke again in the freezer without remembering having been put in there. He must have been unconscious. This time, they hadn't bothered to tie him down, though his wrists were still cut with wire and joined together. For several minutes, he struggled to sit up, but the pain racing up and down his limbs and reverberating in his head and back held him to the floor.

The door opened. They dragged him out. They set him in the blood-slick chair. But another chair had been brought, and in it sat his Mary, bleeding and frightened. On the left side of her head was a gaping wound. They had taken an ear. Fresh blood coursed down the side of her head like a river.

'God, Mary. Oh god, oh god,' said John. Daz stood behind him, the weight of his hands pressing down on his shoulders to detain him. Moran stood behind Mary.

'Mary and I have been having a nice long chat,' said Moran. 'About you. About the things you have told her and the kind of man you are. And I'm a smart man. Smart enough. Putting together all the pieces—her testimony, my personal witness—you know something? I believe you, John.'

John felt no relief at these words. He waited tremulously for the next blow to fall.

'I believe you love her, as much as you say you do. You really don't want to see her hurt. That's sweet. And I also believe that you've been telling the truth all along. You really _don't_ know how to find Sherlock Holmes.' He laughed lightly. 'I think I've suspected it for a couple of days now. You really believe he is dead. Don't you?'

'I know it,' said John weakly. 'I know it.'

'Rather like you know that, say, Irene Adler is dead.'

To John, it seemed that the fluorescent lights were fading rapidly. 'The woman . . . ?' he said softly.

'Ah. So Sherlock never told you. Hm. Interesting. He didn't trust you after all. Not like we had thought.'

'Irene Adler . . .' said John. 'She was beheaded by terrorists. Mycroft. He told me—'

'No, Sherlock saved her life. Touching story. Irene loves telling it. Funny how he rushed off to save _her_, thousands of miles away, but when it comes to you? He's a no-show. So it got me to thinking: If he didn't tell you about _that_, then maybe it's true he didn't tell you about how he faked his_ own_ death.'

'No. No, no, no. He's dead. _He's dead_.'

'He lied.'

'He wouldn't . . . not to me . . . not all this . . . He's dead!'

'So our game has to change, if only a little. See, as of right now, you are merely a missing person. The police have no reason to suspect you are in any immediate danger, and that's how this was going to play out. After we got what we wanted from you, we were going to make you,' he waved his fingers, like casting away a flower, 'disappear. Drop hints that you had fled to France and then down to Greece. Drop your body in the Channel, attached to some free weights or something. We were still in the planning stages of that one. No one, not even dear Mary here, would ever know what had happened to you. But _now_, well, now we _invite_ attention to your . . . plight. You're useless to us as an informant, but as _bait_, the creative possibilities are endless. We'll let the police know we have you. We'll tease Sherlock Holmes out of hiding—some men can't resist a hunting game—and when he comes for you, we'll kill him.'

John hung his head, shaking it from side to side.

'But here's my conundrum, Johnny boy. We brought in Mary here to force you to give up Sherlock's hideout. But you can't, can you?'

'N-no, I—'

'So, really, sweet Mary's rather outworn her usefulness. What to do, what to do? You see my problem, of course.'

'Please, oh god please no. Please no, I'll do anything.'

Moran lifted a knife from the table, and Daz's hands tightened around John's arms to keep him in the chair.

'_I'll do anything! Anything! God! No, please!_'

'There's nothing you can do.' He set the blade against Mary's throat.

'_God, no! Mary! Mary!_'

Her eyes were wide with fear. She mouthed _I love you_ as a single tear slid down her cheek.

'Hush, pet,' said Moran. Then, with his eyes fixed on John, he plunged the knife into Mary's neck and tore the steel through her throat. Something tore through John in the same moment, engulfed him, and he didn't know whether he was within his own body or without, but it took him, dragged him down into blackness, a place he had been before, a prison and a hell, and this time he put up no resistance as it devoured him, heart and soul.


	10. Chapter 10: Unknown Caller

**Chapter 10: Unknown Caller**

**DAY 7**

**Tuesday, 07.11 hrs**

Lestrade sat at his desk, pushing papers and logging reports as quickly as his distracted brain would allow. He was eager to get back onto the street, doing something _important_, but until he made a satisfactory appearance of working the moribund Vander Maten case, he was stuck.

His anxiety was elevated because he had neither seen nor heard from Sherlock since early Monday morning, despite his repeated texts of _Anything yet? _and _Where are you?_ Maybe the number listed under _Doyle_ in his phone had been mistyped. Or, more likely, had been _deliberately _mistyped to appease him in the moment. Either way, he committed the number to memory.

Almost, he wondered if Sherlock Holmes really had been in his house the other night, or if it had been some strange, hyper-realistic dream, a wish-fulfillment during a period of great desperation.

He picked up his phone, scrolled to Doyle, and sent another text:

_I swear to God, Sherlock,_  
_if you don't contact me_  
_soon, I'm calling you in_  
_as a missing person._  
_GL_

Setting the phone down, screen up, he triple-checked his email, if only for something to do, to see whether Donovan had been able to secure the warrant to search the biology teacher's car.

His phone suddenly lit up.

He snatched at it so quickly he almost knocked it clean off the table. He hit the screen to retrieve the message:

_They'll think you've gone_  
_mental. And my name is_  
_Arthur Doyle. Delete the_  
_last text sent from your phone._  
_AD_

So that's what it took. Get Sherlock annoyed, and he'll respond. Lestrade filed that away for future use, deleted the last text from his sent box, and texted back:

_Stop ignoring me, Art.  
GL_

A few seconds later, Sherlock responded:

_I'll contact you when I've_  
_got something to say.  
AD_

Lestrade sighed in frustration and was on the verge sending back a snappy retort when Donovan opened the glass door to his office, stepped purposefully inside, and closed the door firmly behind her. Her eyes were grave, and she had the familiar air of a schoolmarm about her.

'Got those warrants, Donovan?' said Lestrade.

'We need to talk, Lestrade. Or rather, you do.' She crossed her arms and lifted her chin.

Was he being _challenged_? He felt his hackles rise. 'What the hell are you on about?'

'Well, I'm sure you heard. About Mary Morstan. John Watson's girlfriend, you know. Disappeared sometime late Sunday night or early Monday morning.'

Lestrade wilfully controlled his reaction; he didn't so much as raise an eyebrow. 'I did hear, yes. And I find it perfectly dreadful. I hope O'Higgins has decided to take this case more seriously now.'

'It's not your case, sir.'

'I never said it was.'

'Then you'd better stay the hell away from it.'

He leaned forward, elbow on the desk, forefinger pointing at her in warning. 'Watch your tone with me, sergeant, you forget that I—'

'Your prints were found in Mary Morstan's flat,' said Donovan, unruffled by his threatening manner. She dropped a file on his desk. Warily, he opened it and saw copies of the preliminary report and his own name on the list of suspects. 'Care to explain how they got there?'

His mind was turning even more quickly now. 'I'm a _suspect_?' he said, outraged, and stalling for time while he thought. He couldn't admit that he had been there the night Mary was taken, that much was clear. But nor could he flat out deny that he'd been in the flat. Not with evidence like this.

'Not yet. Not officially. Not until I hear a damn good explanation as to why you were in that flat.'

'You're not even on the Watson case!'

'You're right. So I should just let this unfold on its own, should I? Damn it, Greg, I'm trying to save your suspicious-looking arse.'

'All right, listen. Donovan, take a seat.' She sat reluctantly and fixed her eyes on him like they were engaged in a staring contest and he daren't blink first. 'I did go see Mary, the day after I found out John was missing. There's nothing shady going on here, so you can wipe that look of distrust off your face. John is a friend; I was visiting a _friend_.'

'Friend? Last I knew, you and John Watson were on the outs.'

'Doesn't mean I'd stopped caring. Doesn't mean I would just shrug my shoulders, sip my coffee, and let others worry about his inexplicable disappearance. I was concerned, and I wanted Mary to know it. So yes, I went to see her.'

'What day was this then?'

'You're interrogating me? Fine. Fine, it was Saturday.'

'On duty?'

'No, in fact,' he snapped.

'Did you question her?'

'I asked her _questions_, like a normal human being asks another when they have a mutual acquaintance who's gone missing. Jesus, the way you're looking at me, I would think you suspect _me_ of having arranged John's and Mary's disappearances! Why don't you explain to _me _what _you _are doing with a file like this? You and I are working the Vander Maten case.'

Donovan stood, pulled the file off the desk, and said, 'Anderson ran the prints; he seemed to think something fishy was going on.'

He sniffed derisively. 'Because of a few prints?'

'Was anyone else with you when you _visited_ Ms Morstan?'

'No,' he said sharply. Then, a little more cautiously, 'Why?'

She shrugged. 'Because someone else was in that flat, too. Forensics haven't been able to accurately identify the prints yet, but Anderson thinks they might belong to our guy.'

'Someone without a record?'

'Someone with a falsified record, more like. You'll never believe this, but the computer identified the fingerprints as belonging to Sherlock Holmes.'

Lestrade snorted convincingly. 'That's absurd.'

'That's what I said. Sherlock's pulled one over on us again, changing his own criminal record. Even dead, he gets under my skin.'

Lestrade didn't reply to that. 'Is that all, sergeant?'

'For now.'

'How are we doing on those warrants?' He tried to seem interested.

'They're on their way. And Lestrade. Sir. I don't want to have to go to Pitts with this. Are we sorted?'

'Sorted.' _Now get the hell out of my office_, he thought_._ 'But don't think I've lost interest. John Watson is my friend.'

To that, she made no retort and closed the door behind her. Lestrade exhaled; he felt like he had been holding his breath the entire time.

**Tuesday, 10.31 hrs**

He spent the night in the freezer. By morning, the small, battery-powered lantern, hung from one of the hooks on the ceiling, was beginning to dim, its juice running low. Moran had given him the light to show him that he wasn't alone in his prison. Mary's body lay beside him. 'One last night together,' said the man, 'just the two of you.' Then he had winked and closed the door.

He wanted to gather her into his arms, but he couldn't hold her, not properly, not with his wrists wired so viciously together. But he could touch her. It was important to him that he touch her. So he carefully arranged her cold limbs and smoothed her bloody clothing and petted her roughly chopped hair. He kissed her forehead and her mangled hands, whispering to her how beautiful she was, how much he loved her, how sorry he was. He wiped the blood from the gaping wounds at her neck and ear, staining his own hands in her crimson, but he couldn't clean them, and he couldn't hide them. But it wouldn't have been right, hiding what they had done. He deserved the anguish of seeing her violated body. He had brought it upon her, after all. If not for him . . . if he hadn't allowed himself to fall in love with her, in the vain pursuit of his own happiness, she would never have . . .

Though there was not much space in that silver prison, and though every movement caused him agony, he crawled to the back of the freezer where her head lay, sat with his blazing, bare back against the cold wall, and laid her head in his lap.

He could feel her body lose heat until her skin was as cold as steel. He could feel when rigor mortis overcame her. He could feel her blood harden in the cracks of his skin.

If Moran had meant for this night to be a torment, John found that he was mistaken. Yes, his heart had ruptured beyond repair, and he knew that the horror of the brutality of her murder would never ebb, not in the short time he had left. But there was something oddly peaceful in this long goodbye, and if that steel door never opened again, if starvation or thirst or loss of blood took him at last and the freezer became their joint tomb, he would be fine with it. He welcomed it.

John didn't cry. He was too empty. He had pushed the feelings of a lacerated heart down, down, until all that was left was a numbness, a soldier's mask. This was the end for him. All the people he had ever loved, all the people who had ever loved him—Mary, Harry, Sherlock—were dead. Their lives had all ended in incomprehensible violence. It was only fitting that he, too, should meet such an end.

Resting his head against the wall, he continued to stroke her soft, ginger hair, even as the batteries drained and the light faded to black.

**Tuesday, 13.29 hrs**

Lestrade excused himself from the meeting room to take a call. The number was blocked. _Finally_, he thought, walking swiftly to distance himself from open ears, _Sherlock's found something_.

'Lestrade,' he said.

'DI Lestrade, hello. It's been a while.'

Lestrade pulled the phone away from his ear to double check the caller ID; it still read _Unknown Caller._ 'Who is this?'

'Mycroft Holmes.'

'Mr Holmes!' He speedily reviewed his brief conversations with Sherlock. Had he mentioned whether his own brother knew he was alive? No, he was quite sure not. Only Molly knew; he had said it a couple of times. In fact, he couldn't remember either of them having mentioned Mycroft by name at all. But Mycroft's brother was back in London. Did he know? Had his secret service spotted Sherlock? He was running all over London, after all, not giving a damn for who might see him, or who would need him to ring in once in a while, to give an update, to dispel any nagging doubts that this was all just illusion . . .

'Lestrade, are you there?'

'Hm? Oh, yes, of course. What was that?'

'I said, my sources have informed me that John Watson has been named a missing person.'

_Rather late on the updates there, Mycroft_. 'Yes. I'm afraid he has,' said Lestrade.

'When did this happen?'

'Last Wednesday, we reckon. It was reported Friday morning. I believe it was in the paper.'

'I've been in Hong Kong,' said Mycroft. 'Tell me what's happened.'

'Technically, Mr Holmes, it's not my case. You'll want to talk to Jacob O'Higgins. He's head of missing persons.'

'Are you telling me, detective inspector, that you're not involved in a case concerning the disappearance of _John Watson_?' said Mycroft. 'Because I find that hard to believe, given your predilection for my late brother. And it's not as if missing persons has never fallen to your division before. Now this is what I want to know, Lestrade: What does the evidence suggest has happened to him, and what efforts are being made to recover him?'

So he didn't know about Sherlock. Or, at the very least, he didn't know that Lestrade knew. Either way, Lestrade wasn't about to break confidence with Sherlock and say that, not to worry, Sherlock Holmes was on the case.

'I really can't talk about this. Not right now.'

'Then I'll come down to the Yard.'

'No no, I . . . I'll meet you.' He winced even as he said it. What was he _doing_, meeting with Mycroft Holmes at a time like this? He had a case to solve! 'Do you know the pub down by the—'

'I'll send a car. Fifteen minutes, detective inspector.'

To the minute, as it turned out. A woman stepped out of a black town car and, with a smile but without a word, gestured him inside it. Even as he climbed in, he thought of the foolishness of his doing so. After all, as far as he had been able to discern, getting into a car with a stranger had yielded very unfortunate consequences for John Watson.

'Your name?' he questioned immediately.

'Anthea,' said the woman without looking at him. She had her mobile out and appeared to be playing Angry Birds.

'Right. And you work for Mycroft Holmes, do you?'

'Thirteen years now,' she said.

The rest of the car ride, in between bouts of asking himself _what am I doing, what am I doing_, Lestrade vacillated between whether or not to text Sherlock that he was about to meet up with his brother. Would _that_ get a response out of him? Ultimately, he decided (a little vindictively) that it was not _important_, or pertinent, to the case. Sherlock didn't need to know.

The car rolled to a stop before a stone building in Central London called the Diogenes Club, a place Lestrade had never set foot inside before. 'You'll find him in the Stranger's Room,' said Anthea.

He entered the club feeling conspicuously like a cop. And a young, poor one at that. He was neither young nor poor, but compared to the gentlemen—and _gentlemen _was exactly the word here—whom he passed in the corridors and saw reading in offshoot rooms, he was precisely that. He walked briskly to the Stranger's Room.

'Take a seat, detective inspector,' said Mycroft, who already sat cross-legged in a brown-leather wingback chair. Lestrade hadn't known the elder Holmes very well, back when Sherlock had been ali— around . . . but he remembered him as having been a heavier sort of man. The man before him looked thin, an unhealthy kind of thin; his face looked older, gaunter. The last three years had evidently not been kind on Mycroft Holmes.

'The place reeks of cigar smoke,' said Lestrade by way of greeting.

'Like Father's study, I'd say. Must be why this place feels so much like home. Care for one?' He extended an antique silver cigarette case.

'I quit. Years ago.'

'Good for you,' said Mycroft, as if it weren't any good at all. 'Brandy?'

'Let's get straight to it, shall we?'

'I heartily agree.' He leaned forward intently, one elbow pressed into the armrest. 'Now, I've read the police report already. What do you know that it doesn't say?'

'Mr Holmes, when was the last time you spoke to John?'

Mycroft looked taken aback. 'What?'

'I'm just curious. Do you two go for a pint every Friday night, or are you just down to sending each other the annual Christmas card?'

'What's that got to do with anything?'

Lestrade shrugged. 'I guess I'm trying to figure out why you're so interested in this case. You weren't exactly his _mate_, as I recall. That was Sherlock.'

Mycroft smiled tightly. 'The last time I spoke to John Watson, he threw me out of his flat for suggesting that he had been responsible for Sherlock's death.'

'Hell, Mycroft,' said Lestrade.

'He was right to do it. Needless to say, we've had no contact since. Three years, four months, it's been. But that doesn't mean I haven't been, shall we say, keeping tabs. I have people watching him, and I've been helping him where I can. I made sure he was dropped from that rubbish therapist of his and got him on with one of the best in all of Britain. I paid the better half of the bill, too—until he quit going. He thought the low cost was the insurance kicking in or some such twaddle. Additionally, I arranged for Harry Watson's funeral expenses to be credited to my own bank account and had the undertaker tell John they were having a "special". And it was my little nudge that got him hired on at St Elizabeth's, when he was looking for new work, new faces, a new life.'

Lestrade was astounded, and not a little ashamed. What had _he _done for John in all that time? The most he could say for himself was that he'd reduced the charge of officer assault to an ASBO, just one of the many reasons he was no longer popular around the Yard. 'Why?'

Mycroft looked distinctly uncomfortable now, though he did not decline to answer. 'Because John Watson was the best thing that ever happened to Sherlock, and the one person, the one _thing_, he cared for above all else, above even himself, which was, I don't need to tell you, a wondrous thing. And I thought it a piss poor way to honour the memory of my brother, to simply stand by while his best friend crumbled to nothing. In the end, I'm just a sentimental old man.' He looked halfway disgusted with himself, but too tired to reach the full capacity of it. 'John's a good man. He deserves to be happy. But he's been through far too much in his life, and I worry that something has happened to make him want to . . . end it.'

'You think he might have . . .'

'Killed himself, yes. His therapist determined that he had the propensity for such drastic measures.'

'Best in all of Britain, you say,' said Lestrade, shaking his head.

'Don't imagine it out of the realm of possibility. John was acutely depressed, and it wasn't the first time in his life. A man can sometimes handle only so much before he starts looking for a way out. And a disappearance can sometimes indicate—'

'We believe he has been abducted,' said Lestrade, more frankly than he had intended. Why he felt suddenly compelled to bring Mycroft Holmes into all this, he couldn't say.

Mycroft's eyebrows lowered slowly and his eyes narrowed. 'By whom?'

'And when I say _we_, I mean . . . I mean me. Like I told you, I'm not assigned to this case, but I think O'Higgins is following the wrong trail, a trail that implies that John has fled to France.'

'Rubbish.'

'That's what I think.'

'So what leads you to believe it was abduction?'

'Mary Morstan disappeared from her flat Sunday night. Their toiletries, their clothing, everything has been left behind. They aren't running, and I don't believe they are dead.'

'Then they are being held hostage,' Mycroft concluded. 'Do the kidnappers want money? I have money.'

Lestrade couldn't help but feel touched by this generosity. 'I don't know. There have been no demands.'

'Then they want information. Oh lord.' Evidently, Mycroft had just reached the same conclusion as Sherlock.

'Time is of the essence, as you can see,' said Lestrade. Feeling the urgency of his own words, he rose swiftly to his feet. 'I really must be getting back to work.'

'What does John know, Lestrade?'

'I can't even imagine. If we knew who the kidnappers were, perhaps we might have some idea. I've considered everyone from disgruntled patients to former military associates. But from all I can tell, John has been leading a quiet, private life. I haven't the slightest idea what he might know, why he wouldn't give it up, or whether he already has . . .'

'You will tell me if anything develops,' said Mycroft. 'At once.' He scribbled onto a pad of paper on the desk. 'Reach me at this number,' he said, folding the paper and passing it to Lestrade, who pocketed it. 'I'll get some of my own people on this—'

'Be cautious about that, Mr Holmes. I believe there may be a mole in Scotland Yard, and if that's true, then our knowing more than we ought may prove deadly for John.'

Mycroft nodded sharply, stood, and tugged down on his waistcoat. 'I'll contact you.'

_I wish your brother would do the same_, thought Lestrade.

**Tuesday, 22.10 hrs**

They were at the door. He could hear their muffled voices through the walls and the twirling of the lock. They would take her, he knew they would take her. He bowed his head, and his lips found the top of her head in the dark.

Then the light. It fell across Mary's cold legs. John sat in the shadows, holding her.

Whatever quip Moran had been planning died on his lips. His smile transformed into a sneer. 'Get her out of there.'

Daz reached in and grabbed Mary by the ankles to drag her out. John had no choice: he let her go. He heard Daz drop her body on the floor and closed his eyes in response, as though returning to that darkness would also shut out any sound.

'Now John.'

Now Daz stepped all the way inside the freezer. Because John was bare above the waist, he had no shirt to gather into his fists to pull John to his feet. Instead, he grabbed hold of the short hairs of John's head and yanked. John came forward, grimacing, but he was soundless.

They didn't bother to put him in the chair; he couldn't have stayed upright in it anyway. Nor did they have to hold him down this time. But they did gag him again. And without a word, Moran straddled him, pulled out his scalpel, and began to dig. The pain was still intense, and John's muscles still quivered beneath the blade, but he was quiet.

When it was over, Moran stood, one foot on either side of John's hips. 'Hand me his phone.'

John heard him tapping, tapping, and then, the re-created sound of a camera shutter.

Five minutes later, when Moran had satisfied himself with him, they dragged him back to the freezer. John's eyes fell on Mary's crumpled body one last time.


	11. Chapter 11: Sodium, Phosphate

**Chapter 11: Sodium, Phosphate, and Chlorofluorocarbon**

**DAY 8**

**Wednesday, 11.04 hrs**

_Three Harts, 11.00.  
AD_

Lestrade checked the text one more time before walking through the door of the Three Harts pub in North London. Thanks to backed-up traffic on the A315 westbound carriageway, he was running a little late, and each minute delayed only increased his anxiety. It had now been more than two days since he had seen Sherlock in the flesh, two fruitless days on Lestrade's part, so he was hoping that Sherlock had had greater success. And if things were anything like they had been before, chances were, he had.

Although Sherlock was there already, Lestrade didn't recognise him at first. He cast his eyes around at the tables, which were just beginning to fill up, and was moving toward an empty one to wait when somebody snapped his fingers at him. He looked around and saw Sherlock Holmes in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses, jeans, and a Manchester United jersey covered by a black sports coat. All, he saw, were his, although he had never even thought to attempt such an unusual ensemble; nevertheless, Sherlock was pulling it all off, though to someone who knew him, he looked distinctly odd.

'Bit of a new look for you,' said Lestrade, pulling out a chair. 'You raid my wardrobe this morning after I'd gone?'

'Yesterday, actually,' said Sherlock, pulling off the shades and folding them into an inner pocket of his sports coat. 'I ordered you some chips.'

A second later, the server dropped the chips and a coke at the table. 'Ta,' said Lestrade. He popped one in his mouth; it burnt his tongue. Then he remembered. 'You don't have any money.'

'I didn't say I'd pay.'

Lestrade pushed the plate toward him. 'Eat something.'

Sherlock waved the suggestion away like a pestering housefly. 'You should have O'Higgins sacked. He's an utter imbecile. With him in charge, it's a wonder anybody is ever found.'

'You've been hacking into his files, have you? Seen the mess they've made of this?' He popped another chip. 'Sometimes I wonder if we're even looking for the same John Watson.'

'No, I've been following him.'

'Come again?'

'These last two days, I've been following DI O'Higgins and Sgt Clairol.'

'What for? They're on the wrong—'

'To sniff out your mole. We find _him_, we find John. I figure it's got to be someone deep into the case, someone with access to classified information and who can anticipate the next steps well enough to throw the others off the scent.'

'And you think it's one of them? O'Higgins or Clairol?'

'O'Higgins was easy to rule out. He's a mouthpiece, not a real detective. His greatest strengths are slideshows and failing to indicate before switching lanes.'

'And Clairol?'

'Fishes on weekends, hates attending his son's football games because the kid's rubbish, and wears the same shoes to work as he does to church. He also detests his job and plays the lotto. But he's no double agent. He'd make for a terrible liar.'

'So . . .'

'So I wasted two days following the wrong people.' He made a face of annoyance, and Lestrade saw that he was digging his fingernails into the back of his own hand, leaving behind long streaks of aggravated red.

'Oi,' said Lestrade, pointing. Sherlock placed his hands flat on the table.

'This isn't happening fast enough,' said Sherlock through gritted teeth. His fingers twitched, and out of the corner of his eye Lestrade saw that right leg was bouncing up and down on the ball of his foot.

'We'll find him, Sher— Arthur. We will.'

'Of course we will. Dead or alive is the issue.'

He rose suddenly from his chair and headed for the door, without a plan but unable to sit still a second longer. So what had been the point of their meeting? Lestrade's hand shot out and grabbed his arm, detaining him, deciding then and there to wrestle him to the ground if it came to it. 'Sit,' he said. 'We're not done here.'

Sherlock glared at him. His nostrils flared as he fought to control his temper. But after a beat, he did sit. 'Why?' he demanded. 'Do you know something?'

'No, but, _but_—' He put great emphasis on the word, as Sherlock looked like he was on the verge of standing up again. 'But you can't exclude me like you've done over the past two days. You want insight into the machinations going on at Scotland Yard, you need _me_. You want to attack the problem of a mole, you attack it from two angles. Got it? I'm not _John Watson_, but I _am _a detective, and your friend, so surely you can trust me far enough to serve as your partner for the most important case of your life, of _John's _life. And if this is how you treated John every time you were in a mood, my god, hats off to him for his longsuffering.'

The moment he said it, he wished he could take it back. The fire in Sherlock's eyes turned to smoke and vanished, and the corners of his mouth drew down. His lips parted as though to speak, but no sound came out. All the tension in his body that had put him on the edge of a spring board now kept him rigidly in his chair.

'Sorry,' Lestrade muttered. 'I didn't mean that. You're worried about him. I get that. I am too.'

Sherlock looked like he might literally be biting his tongue. That was one restraint Lestrade had never seen in him before. Sherlock took a deep breath, then, ignoring everything that had just spilled out of Lestrade's mouth, he said, 'Make a list of suspects at the Yard.' He had re-entered the mode of a machine, and Lestrade saw clearly that it was a camouflage for his deeper fears. 'Everyone working John's case, anyone within _earshot_ of the people working John's case. Someone who is tech-savvy, can hack a computer.' He thought. 'Someone who was working there three years ago. No newbies.'

'No newbies? But the mole may be a recent plant.'

'No, he was there three years ago.'

'How do you know?'

'Shot in the dark, but I doubt I'm far off the mark.'

'Why? Sherlock, stop making me guess.'

Sherlock's sharp blue eyes reprimanded him for using his name. 'Because three years ago,' he said, turning his finger into the shape of a gun and aiming it at a spot between Lestrade's eyes, 'Moriarty had a rifle pointed at your head, and my guess is that the sniper was someone close to you, in physical proximity that is, someone within Scotland Yard, who would have been nicely situated to take the shot.'

Lestrade stared, disbelieving. 'Jesus Christ,' he said. 'Is— is _that_ why you jumped?'

'Either I died, or you, Mrs Hudson, and John all got killed.'

'Bloody hell. I . . . I never knew.'

'How could you.' Sherlock was digging into his own skin again, visibly stressed. 'Make the list, Lestrade.'

'Sherlock, I just . . . want you to know how sorry I am. About arresting you that night. You're right. I doubted you, and I've never forgiven myself for that.'

'Stop. Just—' Sherlock shook his head.

'_John's_ never forgiven me for that. I knew you better than, well, than all of that. I knew you were a good man. If I had only—' He stopped when he heard the mobile in his pocket go off. 'Excuse me,' he said, not sure if the sound of the interruption was a nuisance during this awkwardly sentimental conversation or a relief. He pulled it out and noted the caller: Dryers, from his homicide team. 'Lestrade,' he said into the phone.

'Sir, we've gotten report of a body in Central London. Witnesses say it was dumped on the side of the road from a van, but no one caught the number plate. Dispatch team's already on the site, but we think you should come.'

The speaker on his phone was just loud enough. Sherlock was watching him with hawk-like eyes, listening intently.

'Suspected homicide, is it?' said Lestrade, pulling out his notepad and flipping to a blank page.

'Almost definitely,' said Dryers. 'Caucasian female, probably mid-thirties. No identification found on the body. Her throat's been slashed, and she's missing two fingers and an ear. Chopped off.'

'Where's the body?' he asked, pen poised.

'Baker Street. Address is 221B Baker Street.'

Lestrade's eyes snapped up to meet Sherlock's in the split second before Sherlock was on his feet and striding out the door.

**Wednesday, 11.49 hrs**

The police were swarming up and down Baker Street, interviewing witnesses and neighbours, passing back and forth between the yellow tape, taking photographs, collecting evidence, and keeping the onlookers at bay. Among them stood Sherlock Holmes. He had planted himself amidst the buzzing bystanders on the edge of the street, fifty metres away from the heart of the scene. On every side of him, people speculated about what was going on, their below-average intelligences jumping swiftly to the most banal conclusions. He tuned out their babble, focusing instead on the conversation going on in his ear.

'I couldn't say,' Mrs Hudson was saying, her voice tremulous, on the verge of breaking. 'I've met her four or five times now, oh, she was such a dear. So good for him. But that was in their flat. Hers and John's. Does—does he know? Have you phoned him?'

From where he stood, Sherlock saw Lestrade place a hand on her shoulder. 'John's missing, I'm afraid.'

'Missing? Oh!' She covered her mouth with her hands, which clutched a handkerchief.

'Mrs Hudson, have you spoken to John recently?'

She slowly lowered her hands. 'Not so recently,' she said. 'Four or five weeks ago, maybe? Just a phone call. My arthritis, you know, and I was out of my pills. He called in a prescription for me. He does that, sometimes.'

'Did he talk about himself at all? How things were going?'

'A little this and that, I suppose.'

'Anything strike you as unusual?'

'No, nothing I can recall.'

'Any nervousness, anxiety, something that felt out of character for him? Maybe he wasn't get on with co-workers? Or maybe he mentioned some former acquaintances?'

'No, John was . . . happy. As happy as I've known him in a long while. I mean, he's not like he was _before_, but I don't suppose he'll ever be.'

Sherlock frowned and watched Lestrade nodded sullenly. 'So beyond John, Mary Morstan had no connection with this address?'

'No, no, she's never been. John . . . He never comes around here anymore. It's hard for him, still, you see. I go to see _him_, and he seems to like that.'

'When was the last time he was actually here?'

'It's been ages.' Sherlock watched her wipe her face with the handkerchief. 'Two years, I suppose. He needed someone to talk to about Harry. I don't think I was much help. He didn't stay long. Greg.' She touched his arm, and her voice rose in pitch and desperation, quavering on the edge of sobs. 'The people who did this to Mary. Do they—? Is John—?'

'Tell her you'll find him,' said Sherlock suddenly.

'We're going to find him, Mrs Hudson.'

'Promise her.'

'I promise you.'

He listened to her begin to cry. Lestrade put a consoling arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. When next she spoke, her mouth was that much closer to the microphone in Lestrade's pocket, and so her words were loud in Sherlock's ear. 'I can't stand this place anymore. I just can't. Ever since we lost our Sherlock. I should go, I really should. Move to the country and become a pest to my niece. Just . . . leave Baker Street.'

Sherlock frowned and said softly to himself, 'England would fall.'

'England would fall,' Lestrade repeated.

Mrs Hudson hiccoughed and her head snapped up. Even from so great a distance, Sherlock could see her eyes widen with wonder. He sighed loudly.

'Idiot,' he said.

'I mean,' said Lestrade, trying to recover from what he realised too late was a blunder, 'London would sorely miss someone like you, Mrs Hudson.'

A moment later, Lestrade passed her off to a woman who assisted Mrs Hudson back into her flat to calm her down, and Lestrade moved away from the other officers on the pretence of reviewing his notes.

'You need to move her to a safe house,' said Sherlock, jostling his way to the back of the crowd, away from 221B. He had seen what he needed to. He couldn't take much more. He pulled the bill of the cap a little lower to cover his eyes.

'Mrs Hudson?'

'Yes. They went after Mary because she was important to John.' He stopped talking while he passed by a couple so they wouldn't think him mad. 'Now it looks like they may be targeting Mrs Hudson. This is terrorisation.'

'I'll have her moved,' said Lestrade. 'I can make that call, as this is officially my case now. I wish it hadn't happened this way, though.' He paused. Then, 'I should have protected Mary. I should have known—'

'I need to see her.'

'Who, Mrs Hudson?'

'Mary. I need to examine the body.'

'That's . . . that's tricky, that is. You're dead, after all.'

'Make it happen, Lestrade. Get Mary's body to Molly, and quickly. John's time is running out.'

**Wednesday, 18.22 hrs**

'She says it's clear,' said Lestrade, putting away his phone. 'Let's go.'

They took the back stairwell down a flight, working their way toward the mortuary. Sherlock had discarded Lestrade's cap and sports coat in the car and snatched a lab coat on his way into the hospital, donning the guise of a lab technician. Most wouldn't give him a second look. But he kept his eyes peeled and his head down, ready to backtrack or duck into an empty room if the wrong person came around the corner (his lip curled at just the thought of Anderson). The halls were painfully familiar, halls he never thought he'd walk again, although he did so frequently in his nightmares.

Then, the double doors to the mortuary.

He let Lestrade enter first. Secretly, he was impressed by how quickly Lestrade had cut through the red tape. It was so quick, in fact, that Sherlock doubted the blood work and other tests on the body were even complete yet. Then again, it was a murder and kidnapping case, with one more victim still out there. Every minute counted. He entered the brightly lit room.

Molly was there, alone. She stood beside the long table on which lay a draped body. He noticed that her hair was shorter, about shoulder length, and a few shades lighter than when he had last seen her, though not much else had changed. As ever, she wore little makeup, only a little lip gloss, recently applied. They stared at each other for a long moment.

'It's good to see you again, Molly Hooper,' he said, and even he was surprised at how sincerely he meant it.

'Sherlock,' she said. She took a step forward, hesitated, then crossed the room. He saw that she had a new kitten that treated her arms like a scratcher board. She hadn't bothered to buy herself new clothes in a long while—he had seen that shirt before, which was frayed a little more around the neckline—and she had eaten a chocolate bar in lieu of a proper lunch. These things about her had annoyed him before, but now there was only warmth. He was glad for this Molly Hooper, so when she opened her arms for an embrace, he stepped into them. It was a bit awkward—they could both feel it—but any show of affection on his part always had been. He patted her clumsily on the back and straightened.

'I didn't know if you would come,' she said. Then she smiled. 'I mean, it's so strange. Here you are! You said I'd never see you again.'

'At least you had fair warning,' said Lestrade. Sherlock was peculiarly grateful for his inserting himself back into the scene.

'Let me see the body,' said Sherlock, not wishing to dwell on the emotions a reunion was stirring in him. He had steeled himself to see Lestrade from the moment he had decided to return. Lestrade, and no one else. He wasn't prepared to see anyone else.

Molly returned to the table. Gently, as though working around a sleeping child, she drew the sheet back, revealing the pale, battered face and slashed throat of Mary Morstan.

'Christ,' said Lestrade under his breath.

Sherlock was still for a few seconds as he looked down at the body of this woman who had been so important to John. But again, he fought against the threat of sentiment. His caring about all that wouldn't do anyone any good, and certainly not John. In fact, if he allowed any feeling at all to encroach on his mental faculties, it would most certainly prove detrimental. So he blanked his face and hardened his heart. He stepped forward and touched her cropped hair with thumb and forefinger. 'Looks like this was hacked with a flat-edged razor or knife. Messy work.'

'Why would they—?'

'Humiliation. To unnerve her, but more likely to unnerve John. Like I said, Lestrade, this is terrorisation. Molly, a magnifying glass.'

She pulled a small one, attached to the end of a ruler, from a drawer and handed it to him. He leaned close and looked at the skin of the face around the lips and eyes, the scrapes and cuts, the gaping wound on the side of her head. 'This wound was made prior to death, is that right?'

'Yes,' said Molly softly. 'Fingers too.'

'And the ear was not found with the body? Or the fingers?'

'No,' said Lestrade. 'Perps might be holding onto them as keepsakes, or to torment John, perhaps.'

He examined the slashed throat. The cut was deep and had torn cleanly through the oesophagus and jugular veins. A single instrument, a single cut. Incision point suggested no hesitation, nor was there any indication of rage. No, it was far too controlled a slice. Whoever had done this had done it calmly, as a matter of procedure, like a seasoned butcher deboning a calf. Quick, precise, passionless.

He then asked Molly to pull back the whole sheet so he could see everything. Meanwhile, he listened to Lestrade and Molly's conversation.

'Anything come up in the lab tests?' Lestrade had angled himself just enough to not have to look at the body.

'I got them just ten minutes ago. Let me see,' said Molly, grabbing the chart and flipping pages. She began to read off the results of the blood work, levels of sodium, potassium, urea, creatinine, and so forth, for Sherlock's benefit, not Lestrade's, before interpreting. 'High levels of adrenaline indicate stress, and low levels of glucose suggest she hadn't eaten in approximately twenty-four hours. Low iron, of course, because of the blood loss. We put time of death around midnight, Monday night.'

'Any drugs found in her system?' asked Lestrade.

'None. But there were trace amounts of chemicals found on the skin and clothes,' said Molly, her eyes jumping from point to point on the chart. 'Ammonium hydroxide, primarily, on her hands and forehead, but also sodium, phosphate, and chlorofluorocarbon.'

Sherlock straightened, scrolling through his mental index of chemicals and cross-referencing ammonium hydroxide, sodium, phosphate, and chlorofluorocarbon.

'Sherlock?' said Lestrade, expectantly.

The pieces weren't sliding together. The first three could be found virtually anywhere, and the last was often used in aerosols. He didn't see the connection. 'Nothing. Go on, Molly.'

'Most of the blood on the body and on her clothes was her own. But not all of it.' She bit her lip, cast a quick glance at Sherlock, and said, 'Some of it is John's. DNA matches what forensics found in their flat. There are also unidentified traces of DNA from skin particles and hair found on her body, but they don't match any records we have on file.'

'They were definitely together then,' said Lestrade. 'John and Mary. And presumably, John was alive when they were. How much of John's blood?'

'An estimated 50 millilitres. Not much at all.'

_Not enough loss to be fatal, she means_, thought Sherlock.

'Where was it found?'

'All over. On her hair, face, hands, neck, clothes.'

'You said there were traces of others' DNA. Any signs of rape?'

'None, although . . .' Molly closed the chart and looked down at the body, saying softly, 'She _was_ pregnant.'

There was palpable silence in the room, and Sherlock froze, his eye close to the magnifying glass hovering over Mary's severed digit, seeing nothing. For a second, he felt as if his brain had been derailed.

Lestrade cleared his throat. He spoke with a low voice. 'She didn't mention it. I wonder if she knew. Do you know how—how far along—?'

'Not without a proper autopsy. It's scheduled for eight o'clock.'

'Her clothes,' said Sherlock, back on track. 'Where are they?'

'Lab's got them,' said Molly. 'But I have pictures.' She coloured a little. 'I thought you would need to see her as she was found, so I took them.' She handed him her phone.

Sherlock nodded to her as an expression of thanks. He thumbed through the pictures, noting the copious blood that had spread from her neck all over the over-sized t-shirt. John's t-shirt. He recognised it.

Lestrade continued to Molly, 'Do you know if anyone has been contacted? Parents, family? She mentioned she had a sister.'

'I don't know if they've gotten hold of her yet.'

Lestrade's mobile went off in his pocket. 'Excuse me,' he said, stepping back from the table. Sherlock continued to examine Molly's photos, although he didn't find them especially helpful. He needed to get close to the clothes themselves, check them for unexplained rips, blood splatters, smell—

Lestrade gasped. 'It's John!'

Sherlock spun. '_What?_'

'This text, it's from John's phone, it's—Oh god.'

Sherlock took two long strides and, in the same movement, both tossed Molly's phone back to her and snatched Lestrade's out of his hands. Lestrade didn't protest. He barely moved at all. Sherlock lifted the phone before his eyes and saw not a text message, but a photo.

The photo was of John, taken at close range. He appeared to be sitting upright, but a hand on his bare shoulder was holding him there. His head was hanging low, his eyes were closed, and a gag was fitted into his mouth. Blood, bright and wet, fell from his bottom lip, and from what Sherlock could see, his teeth were also red. A two-inch gash at his temple—brass knuckles, he was sure of it—was black with dried blood, the skin swollen. His head was visibly battered, his hair blood soaked, his face a mess of bruises. Two holes in the side of his neck were almost indiscernible for the caked blood obscuring them. Sherlock felt the fire he had been pushing down, deep into his gut, flare. His fingers curled more tightly around the phone. _What do they want from you, John? What?_

The phone beeped again. Incoming message from Watson.

Turning away from Lestrade, as though retreating to some private place, Sherlock opened the message, another photo. This time, a close-up of John's hands. Inside wrists were pressed together, and tightly binding them was a thin, silver wire, wrapped seven times around his hands, the ends twisted together where John's fingers couldn't reach, as effective as a lock. The wire had bitten deep into the skin, and both wrists ran with blood that dripped off the tips of his fingers; two fingers appeared to be broken. Any resistance on John's part would have met with the unyielding, razor-like cutting of the wire. _How many days?_ Sherlock wondered as he tried to keep his own hands from trembling. With the wrists positioned as they were, the wire was not about to cut through a vein, but given enough time he could very well lose both hands._ How many days more could he—?_

It beeped again. With an unsteady finger, Sherlock retrieved the next photo.

John was on the floor, flat on his stomach with his arms stretched out above him. His back, it appeared, had been mutilated with a knife. And then Sherlock recognised it: seven instances of the grouped letters I, O, and U had been carved into the skin.

He let out a shout of horror and stumbled backwards, as though to distance himself from the photo in his own hand; but his hand locked the phone in place, and his eyes, wide with disbelief, couldn't pull away.

'Sherlock!' said Lestrade, stepping forward, but Sherlock put out a hand to forestall him. His head swam, his vision blurred. He felt like he would be sick.

The phone beeped one more time. This time, it was a text:

_Find Sherlock, or the next time_  
_you see our Johnny boy, it will_  
_be bit by bit._

Sherlock dropped the phone. The battery popped out and the screen went dark. He cried out, a long, terrible cry of anger mixing perilously with fear, and he tore his fingers through his hair. He started pacing erratically, and when he met with a wall, he kicked it, slammed his hands against it, screaming.

'Sherlock!' Lestrade said in panic. Molly stood with hands covering her mouth, her wide eyes shining with tears. 'Sherlock, stop! Stop! Molly, put that battery back in, I need to see it. Sherlock!'

Sherlock twisted around, his face warped in rage and terror. A single tear slid down his cheek, but he didn't feel it. 'Is he dead? Is Moriarty _really_ dead?'

Lestrade looked stunned, as though it were the last thing he had expected to come out of Sherlock's mouth. 'Moriarty?'

'Jim?' said Molly in a small voice.

'Yes! Yes, Moriarty! Is he _dead_?'

'Of— of course he is, Sherlock.'

'You're sure? You're _absolutely _sure?'

'I—'

'Because I fooled you pretty damn good, Lestrade. Didn't I? Are you one hundred percent positive that James Moriarty is a dead man?'

'Yes! The body we found on the roof,' he said, 'had been shot in the mouth. He was missing the back of his skull, and he was absolutely dead. He was . . . identified as Richard Brook.'

'It was Jim,' said Molly quickly. 'I know because . . . I worked on his body. Right here. It was weird, you know, because we had been . . . a couple.'

But Sherlock was not placated. He headed for the door, and when Lestrade tried to detain him, he shoved him away in anger and stormed out the door, leaving Molly and Lestrade behind, speechless and afraid.


	12. Chapter 12: A Present for John Watson

Please take special note: This chapter contains graphic violence that may disturb some readers. _Readers may wish to skip ahead to the next chapter._

* * *

**Chapter 12: A Present for John Watson  
**

**DAY 8**

**Wednesday, 21.37 hrs**

'Drink up, pet.'

Moran set the dog dish by his head and petted his blood-matted hair. 'Go on then,' he said.

His resolve to let himself die of dehydration waned in the presence of the cool, wet water, and wearily he pushed himself to his elbows and lifted his heavy head. His parched lips, aching with pain, touched the soothing surface, which offered momentary relief. And he drank. The more he took in, the more needy his thirst, and soon he was sucking the bottom of the bowl, lapping at the droplets on its walls, needing more.

'Go ahead and fill it back up, Lex,' said Moran. Lex overturned a plastic water bottle into the bowl, and John returned for more, draining this bowl even more quickly than the first.

'Our boy's got quite a thirst,' Moran commented, reaching down and petting John's hair again. 'That's good. Shows he's still got some spirit left in him.'

But John had been thinking of ways to die, and as he finished off the second bowl and returned his head to the cool tiled floor, he thought of this lapse in willpower—his drinking the water—as a sign only of weakness, not spirit. He was ready for the torture to finally culminate in his murder. He was ready for it all to end. If they tried drowning him again, he would take the water into his lungs. He would twist and writhe below a knife until the blade tore open a major artery. He would chew the ammonia-soaked rag to pieces the next time they fitted it between his teeth, and swallow, hoping either to choke to death on the fabric or poison himself. Maybe he would goad Lex into tasering him until his heart seized with the jolts and he suffered cardiac arrest. So many ways to die, and he was furious with himself that he hadn't managed to do it yet. _You git_, he told himself. _You feeble son of a bitch. When they put water beside you, you drink. Miserable bastard._

'I finally received a reply to the photos I sent to your dear detective inspector. Took him nearly three hours. Know what he sent back?' Moran laughed as he scrolled through John's phone. Then he turned the screen to show him. 'This.'

It was a snapshot of a computer screen showing the page of a news website from three years before, which announced the death of Sherlock Holmes. The photo beneath the headline pictured Sherlock in the deerstalker.

'Quite the smart arse, your Lestrade. And the text reads, _Found him. Now where the hell is John?_ What a riot, he is. We should send him something new. Spur the horse onward. Get the detective out there _detecting_. I should think, after you, he'd be our next best shot at finding Sherlock. He was third on Sherlock's list, anyway, wasn't he? After you and the old woman.'

John didn't know what he was talking about. Then again, he was finding it difficult to make much sense of anything lately. His head felt heavy, his mind sluggish.

'But no real rush, I suppose. You and I—we're still having fun. In fact, I brought you another present,' said Moran.

At first, John refused to look; then he heard the soft clinking of chains, almost like bells. Against his own desire and propelled by fear, he turned his head and saw Moran presenting to him what looked like a chainmail belt, only of greater width and lesser length, and the links were larger, fewer. And on each link, angled inward, a short, slightly curved barb, like a straightened fishing hook.

'It's called a cilice. A metal cilice, that is. Not a religious one. Those are merely _bothersome_, compared to this. Painful, sure, but not designed to draw blood. This one is more . . . recreational, say. It's designed as punishment. Do you know what you're being punished for, John?'

John closed his eyes again and thought of all the things he deserved to be punished for.

'For the sins of your master. If we can't touch _him_, you will have to serve. Are you a religious man, John? It's called a vicarious atonement. You for him. For now, at least. It's funny. I used to bemoan the fact that, on the day Sherlock jumped, I didn't get to pull the trigger that would blast your brains across the road like applesauce. It would have been _just_, after all. Brain for a brain, as they say. Do they say that?'

His mouth had already gone dry again, as if he hadn't drunk anything at all.

'You know, I had _two_ chances to make that shot. You'll remember the first. It was the day you met Jim as he truly was—a master of the game. And do you remember what he said to you? You should. It came out of your own lips. _I can stop John Watson_. Remember now? _Stop his heart_. I heard it myself, from where I stood, staring down the little crosshairs centred over your heart. You should have known those words were more than just poetry; they were a promise. And Jim always made good on his promises. I mean, look at you now.'

Moran lowered to a knee and bent himself near to the ground, placing his face alongside John's. His hand snaked forward and lay flat against John's bare chest. 'But there it goes. Still, it goes. Thump. Thump. What for, Johnny boy? How's it doing that? I thought we had torn it out of you.'

They stared into one another's eyes for a long moment, blue into blue, both empty, but not in the same way.

'You were a marked man on that day,' he said, softly. He was so close, John could smell his peppermint breath. 'Hell, you were a marked man the day you met Sherlock Holmes.'

Moran suddenly sprang back to his feet, standing over John. 'A good thing I didn't blast the life out of you back then, eh? If I had done that, you and I would never have gotten to play. And I do _so_ enjoy playing with you, Johnny boy. So whattaya say? Shall we try on your new piece of jewellery?'

Moran wedged a shoe under John's body and rolled him over onto his back. He grunted at the pressure against his open wounds.

'Trousers off. Daz, if you would do the honours.'

Almost instantly, John felt Daz's heavy hands working to unbutton his trousers and unzip his flies before peeling the blood-splattered fabric down his legs, slowly, leaving him in only his underpants. He shivered, and with his bound hands tried to cover his crotch.

'Do you have a preference, Johnny? Left leg or right?' He jingled the cilice above John's head, like a master with a lead enticing his dog for walk. 'No? Well, we'll give each fair treatment over the next few days, then. I imagine it will take the detective inspector a fair spot of time to track down our favourite runaway. So. We'll start with the left. Daz, love, be a dear and spread sweet John's thighs for me.'

Daz slid his hand up the inside of John's right thigh and drew it away from his left, leaving the left leg available to Moran to do with as he pleased. 'That's better. Make him comfortable, Daz, while I get this thing on. I've never done this before.'

Mostly naked and with Daz's hands on his exposed skin at last, John felt more vulnerable now than he had when Moran first had him on the ground, pinned down, to carve into his back. With the tips of his fingers, Daz began to massage the skin high up on John's inner thigh with little circular motions; with his other hand, he held John's knee to the floor. Meanwhile, Moran lifted his left knee and slid the cilice beneath the thigh. Then, with both hands, he slammed the thigh to the ground.

As the barbs sank into his flesh, John howled in pain; but it wasn't over. Moran wrapped the cilice around his leg like a belt, sliding the perforated leather strap on one end into a buckle of the other. Then he yanked, cinching tight the cilice, and up and down his thigh, droplets of blood bloomed from the skin before streaming down like rain on a window pane. John shouted again. His whole body quivered.

'Hush, pet,' said Moran mildly. 'There now, let him go.'

Daz released the pressure on John's leg, and John rolled onto his side, curling into himself, but no position he could assume would assuage the clenching pain. A wave of nausea overcame him, a body recoiling against all feeling, and he retched; water and stomach acid spilled from his mouth and onto the floor. His vision darkened, the room tilted, and he sank into a world of unknowing.

**Wednesday, 23.12 hrs**

He awoke with a start when every nerve in his tenderised skin jumped at once. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. His air passages felt compressed, his chest like a vacuum, about to fall in on itself. Then he recognised that his head was dripping, his chest and legs were wet. He was drenched in ice-cold water, and the moment the stream cleared from his eyes, he saw them throw the second bucket.

'Sorry for the rude wake up, Johnny, m'lad,' said Moran. 'But Daz, my big, burly man, he likes 'em shivering. Not my cuppa, but we all have our kinks. He says it keeps the muscles tight and quivering.' He dropped to a knee beside John. 'And sorry for _this_.'

He unbuckled the cilice and ripped it away; the barbs tore the skin apart. John screamed again, and a moment later a third bucket rained down on his leg and midsection. He gasped and panted and whimpered through clenched teeth. As Moran moved to affix the cilice to his other leg, he noticed that Daz was removing his own trousers.

He knew then that it would happen for sure. He had known it from almost the beginning. Moran's insinuations, Daz's hungry eyes—he was neither deaf nor blind to them. But he had hoped, and as the days wore on and nothing happened, that hope grew stronger. Soon, he reasoned, he'd be dead, and this would be one humiliation, one torture, he would not have to endure. But he had been wrong.

The spikes on the metal cilice punched into the skin of his right thigh like pushpins, and Moran pulled the strap tight. John's eyes streamed, his body shook, and in his periphery he saw Daz readying himself with painstaking, unhurried strokes; his eyes were fixed on John like a compass pointing due north.

Seeing John's distraction, Moran knelt beside him and patted his cheek roughly to recapture his attention to himself. 'I've been making him wait,' he said, making no attempt to control his smile. 'It's been hard on him. So he may be a little over-enthusiastic. Just so you know.'

The lights above his head flickered.

'Lock him up!' said Moran, rising again. At that, Pete and Lex came forward. They rolled John onto his stomach, each grabbed an arm, and they dragged his body across the floor to a drain. There, using the same chain that had been used in the freezer, they locked his wired wrists to the grating of the drain, which was screwed tightly into the tiles. The chain gave John about six centimetres slack.

'He's all yours,' said Moran darkly.

John pulled on the chain with the feeble hope that it would give way, that somehow, he could escape; the wires only bit even more deeply into his wrists.

A shadow fell over him. He could feel Daz drawing nearer. A long minute passed, and nothing happened, but his fear was mounting almost past endurance so that he could scarcely think straight. Then Daz placed a foot between John's legs to pry them apart. When he had just enough space, he lowered himself. Two large hands touched the skin at John's knees, just a tickle at first, then they began to knead their way up the thighs. One hand pressed mercilessly on the cilice, and the hooks seared deeper into his flesh. John groaned at the pain, his mouth rubbing into the floor between his arms, his eyes squeezed tight. The hands continued upward until they reached his arse. Then the thick fingers grabbed the top of his pants, wet with the ice water, and peeled them back, dragging them all the way down his legs before casting them aside.

'Here we go,' said Moran, a note of excitement in his voice. The voice was suddenly directly over his head. 'Say hullo, Johnny.'

John lifted his head and saw Moran holding his phone out to him. It took him a moment to realise that he was staring at the back of it, and the small white light beside the circular lens was on. He was being videoed. He instantly turned his head away. _Please, God, let me die_, he thought, as Moran chuckled.

Then it started. Daz, kneeling between John's spread legs, reached forward with wide, brawny hands and grabbed John at the hips. He sank nails into his skin and pulled him up to his knees. John's arms were stretched out taut in front of him, and his wrists strained against the locked wire. Behind him, he felt the pressure of hot skin against his own frigid arse, felt Daz positioning himself, and then the slow, excruciating intrusion as the man drove the full length of himself, a man of considerable size, deep inside him. John gasped; his mouth opened in a silent scream. But it was only the beginning.

'Ride him hard, ride him raw!' said Lex.

John felt like he was being torn apart, cloven anew with each brutal thrust. His only thought was to get away: he tried to lunge forward and put distance between himself and his attacker, or to flatten himself to the ground, but Daz's nails dragged long claw marks through his skin, against his ribs, around his waist, before sinking deeper into his hips, pulling him back, locking himself into him. The man's thighs repeatedly butted up against his own, causing the cilice to chafe and the barbs to rip holes in the skin. Tears leaked from John's eyes, and he bit down on his own tongue, drawing blood and trapping cries of pain in his throat.

It was a searing of flesh, a violence unlike any he had ever known. The viciousness with which the large man claimed him, for his own cruel gratification, was undoing him. A sob tore from his throat. He beat his bound hands against the floor, again and again, despite the blazing pain concentrated around his bloody wrists. But the man didn't slacken. No, he only thrust more urgently, more savagely, while a man circled around them with his phone set to video, speaking words John couldn't comprehend, and while two more men watched in silent approbation.

Time seemed to have frozen; or, rather, kept replaying on a loop—he was inundated in a ruthless burning as he was impaled again and again, until it seemed as though it would never end. But Daz was reaching his peak. With a moan, he reached around and took hold of John's erect penis, which was throbbing with discomfort, and began to pull in rhythm with his own movements. It didn't take much—John ejaculated onto the floor, to the sound of applause and Moran crying out, 'And there he goes, boys! See? He likes it.'

But he wanted to vomit. He felt himself gagging, felt the dry heaves travel from stomach to throat, but nothing came up. The relentless slashing intensified, faster, hotter, until Daz came at last inside him, one final jolt, and after, as the hot fluid seeped out of John, dyed red in his blood, Daz released his hands from John's hips and pressed his fingers into his lacerated back, pushing him away. John wailed, his whole body spasmed, and he fell forward, Daz on top of him, panting heavily.

Daz clamped a large hand to the back of his neck and whispered into his ear: 'You're a sweet little fuck, ain't you.' Then the pressure lifted. John felt poisoned, paralyzed, by the intensity of the pain, the overwhelming shame. He wanted to scream, to cry, to do an even greater and more permanent violence to himself, but he could do nothing.

'Now then,' said Moran. He rolled his shoulders casually before extracting his scalpel. 'Day eight, is it?'


	13. Chapter 13: Moriarty's Game

**Chapter 13: Moriarty's Game**

**DAY 9**

**Thursday, 09.15 hrs**

'I can't believe this,' said Donovan, shaking her head morosely. 'It's awful. I mean, we see this kind of thing all the time, but when it's someone you know, a good chap like John . . .'

Lestrade scowled, hands deep in his pockets as he stared out the window, his back to Donovan and Anderson, who were among the first of his team to review the photos.

'Terribly disturbing,' Anderson muttered softly. 'Nice bloke.'

'When I'd heard he'd gone missing,' Donovan continued, 'I was so worried, but I never thought . . . something like this . . .'

Anderson heaved a large, drawn-out sigh, apparently going for a troubled reaction. 'Still. In a way, the photos are a good thing. We have something to work from now.'

'And we know what kind of condition we can expect to find him in,' agreed Donovan. 'As if Mary Morstan's body weren't indication enough. Poor John . . .'

'Yes, all right,' said Lestrade, turning around and snatching the photos back. 'Don't pretend that you give a damn.'

She had done the same thing, made the same vapid comments, when she had first learned that Sherlock Holmes had jumped off the roof at Barts. She was full of crap then, and she was full of crap now, and he was in no mood to pretend otherwise.

'Sir!' she protested.

'No luck tracing the number, I take it,' he said, ignoring her wide, scandalised eyes.

'No, sir,' said Anderson.

'Then I'll have my phone back. Thank you. Now get back to work. This is our number one priority. We _find_ this location, _now_. I have a meeting with O'Higgins—we're working this one jointly, if you haven't heard—so I'll update you when we meet up again. In the meantime, Everett Stubbins will take you through their current leads.'

'But what about the Vander Maten case?' said Donovan.

'Frank Vander Maten is already dead. I'm trying to prevent John Watson from following.' Lestrade paused halfway out the door and turned back. 'You want the case? I've turned it over to Sullivan, but you've both been working on it with me, and you're his superior, Donovan. Your call.'

'I—' She cast a glance at Anderson. 'No, I'll stay with you.'

He felt a grim sort of satisfaction at her answer—so she wasn't ready to fly solo yet after all. Nevertheless, that satisfaction was tinctured with annoyance. It would have been nice to get away from Sally Donovan for the duration. 'Then get moving.'

In actuality, Lestrade had met with Jacob O'Higgins earlier that morning, before the sun had come up, in Tony Pitt's office. Initially, O'Higgins had petitioned the chief superintendent to head the Mary Morstan case, as it was directly tied to John Watson's disappearance; but when compared to Greg Lestrade, he had little experience with homicides of this nature. And though Pitts deemed Lestrade a more capable detective, he was also alert to Lestrade's emotional investment in the case. Therefore, he assigned them to work together, as a joint task force. Lestrade's initial displeasure at the assignment gave way, however, when he realised that having a second, of sorts, someone he could delegate the more mundane tasks to, would permit him the time to work with whom he considered his real partner on the case, Sherlock Holmes. In fact, the moment he was clear of Donovan and Anderson, that's exactly whom he went to see.

Sherlock had spent the night at Barts, presumably; Lestrade didn't know for certain. After fleeing the mortuary, Sherlock had refused to respond in any way to any of Lestrade's texts or calls. The gruesome photos of John had deeply unnerved Sherlock, in a way Lestrade would not have thought possible. He had seen Sherlock get agitated, and frustrated, and even angry, but always over matters of a case, never over the victims themselves; but the madness, the pure rage—and something else; fear?—that he had seen in Sherlock's eyes had been frightening to witness. Then suddenly he was gone.

As much as he wanted to, Lestrade found he couldn't fault Sherlock for his reaction. After all, the photos sharpened the reality that somewhere, in any given moment though beyond their sight, John was being tortured. The wounds were real, the pain was real. The photos were merely a glimpse through the window into John's minute-by-minute inexplicable torment. But no, it was more than even that. It wasn't so inexplicable anymore. Now, they knew the reason.

_Find Sherlock_.

_That_ was what had sent Sherlock over the edge. _He_ was the reason. John was being abused and mutilated because of _him_, because they wanted _him_. John's abduction, Mary's death, it was all in the interest of getting to Sherlock Holmes.

Someone knew he was alive. Someone wanted him dead. And John was the gateway.

Lestrade feared what Sherlock might do. Fear, anger, and guilt drove the sanest of men to do foolish and unspeakable things. What would those things do to a man like Sherlock?

So for six hours, between handling the new evidence, meeting with Pitts and O'Higgins, and prepping his team, he tried to contact Sherlock. Then, sometime after midnight, Sherlock finally texted back:

_Get me enlarged copies of those _  
_photos. Leave them with Molly.  
AD_

Lestrade was unhappy with the demand. He wasn't sure whether it was such a good idea, giving him those photos. Technology and forensics experts were already dissecting them, after all, and what good would it do to let Sherlock obsess over them? Weren't the monstrous images already burned into his retinas, like they were into Lestrade's?

In the end, however, he didn't refuse. He phoned Molly. As it turned out, she had sent Sherlock a single text of her own, two minutes before Sherlock contacted Lestrade:

_There's a room here at Barts_  
_you can use while you lie low,_  
_if you need it._

Apparently, Sherlock had accepted the offer. At least he trusted _someone_.

So in the early morning, as John's case grew to include a new team and new evidence to sort through, Lestrade sent enlarged copies of the three photos in a sealed manila envelope to St Bartholomew's Hospital, care of Molly Hooper. She called when she received them and said she had delivered them to Sherlock. So the moment he was free of Donovan and Anderson, Lestrade hurried to Barts.

**Thursday, 09.41 hrs**

Molly had set Sherlock up in an examination room on the second floor of the hospital in a less-trafficked hallway, a room she claimed was seldom used. When Molly and Lestrade approached it, he saw a sign taped to the door, written on a plain sheet of paper in black biro: Do Not Enter.

'He made it himself,' said Molly. 'Said, you'd be surprised how no one ever questions these. I guess that's true.'

'Thank you, Molly. For, you know, being there for him. He trusts you, doesn't he?'

She smiled uncomfortably and tucked her short hair behind an ear. 'He trusts you too, Greg.'

'More than some, perhaps.'

He wanted to ask her, then and there, about Sherlock's fall, and about how she had helped, and why she alone, of all people, had been trusted with the knowledge of Sherlock's survival. From what Lestrade remembered, Sherlock had not been terribly fond of Molly. In fact, his attitude towards her in the past was what Lestrade would have described as barely masked scorn. Something must have happened. After all, Sherlock had seemed sincerely pleased to see her yesterday, and he had not shirked to embrace her, however briefly. Affection aside, physical closeness wasn't really Sherlock's area. In fact, come to think of it, the only two people Lestrade had ever seen Sherlock even purposefully _touch_ (who weren't dead) were Mrs Hudson and, well, John. As for himself? He doubted they had shared any physical contact since that initial handshake, eight years ago. That's just who Sherlock was. Sometimes he stood too close, uncomfortably close, but as a mode of intimidation, not friendliness, and sometimes he shoved people out of his way or hit a man in the face or whipped off a distressed woman's shock blanket, but only as a matter of course, not familiarity. Sherlock was not a man to invite familiarity. So that Molly, of all people, should have earned her way into his highly selective circle of intimacies was astounding to Lestrade and he felt—_dear lord, is _that_ what I feel?_—a twinge of jealousy, that after so many years of knowing the man, he had never received from Sherlock so much as a clap on the shoulder.

Then again, Sherlock _was _wearing his clothes. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that, though.

So he didn't ask Molly any of his burning questions. It wasn't the time, and he was eager to speak to Sherlock. Molly excused herself to the mortuary, and Lestrade opened the door.

Sherlock had turned the small examination room into a laboratory. On one counter was a microscope, and beside it five Petri dishes holding what Lestrade could only guess were substances found on Mary's body and clothes. There was also a small rack of test tubes. The three enlarged photos were pinned side by side to an unlit light box for x-rays. Sherlock was staring at them over the point of his hands, joined as if in prayer, from his place in a swivel chair, his legs drawn up under him, making him look like a stone gargoyle on the edge of a precipice. He was as still as one, too, until Lestrade closed the door behind him. Then he leapt to his feet, sending the chair spinning. He then yanked the photos down and placed them flat on a table. He made no greeting, offered no mention of his behaviour last night, where he had gone, or what he had been doing. He was in deductive mode. Excitement infused his voice, and Lestrade knew there had been a break in the case: he had heard that tone before.

Sherlock pointed to the first photograph, but not to the disturbing image of his friend. It was almost as if Sherlock didn't see the man whose bloodied face and gagged mouth still made Lestrade wince, like John was an inconsequential detail of the photo, best to be ignored. He was pointing instead to a dark, slender line in the background, a thing Lestrade would have glazed over had it not been pointed out to him.

'There. The pipe running halfway up the wall. No longer in use, is it? Of course not, because that's a lead pipe. Britain hasn't used lead piping since the 1930s. Today it's plastic, brass, copper, something non-toxic. We're looking for a place built in the 1930s, maybe the 1920s, that has since been renovated, as indicated by the tiles.' He tapped the third photo to show what he meant. 'Likely in the '70s, given the unsightly orange. The place is abandoned now, probably recently. This room is most certainly a sublevel, somewhere no one would be able to hear screaming.'

'Screaming,' repeated Lestrade.

'Mary's fingers and her ear were severed while she was alive. It would have hurt. She would have screamed, surely. They always do.'

Lestrade looked at him, startled, but Sherlock had moved on.

'But no one called the police, no one heard her. The room—probably the whole building—is sufficiently isolated. Now here'—he moved to the next photo—'the kidnappers used wire to bind John's hands. Why wire? Pain and compliance. The more the victim struggles, the more it chafes the skin, and the more it hurts. Wiring the wrists so tightly together like this forces the arms and consequently the whole body into a prolonged and unnatural position. It's called a stress position, and in short time everything hurts like hell—shoulders, neck, upper and lower back—and so the victim tries desperately to reposition the hands, to draw them apart, which only further damages the skin, and before long, the wires cut. Like this. So he holds still, adding stress to the muscles and joints, greater pain. It's a cycle, and an increasingly painful one. Whoever has done this knows that. He's an expert at inflicting pain, even when he's not in the room. He's resourceful, efficient.'

'Efficient.' Lestrade frowned. Sherlock spoke like he knew something about it. Not for the first time, Lestrade wondered how he had spent the last three years.

'But he's also hands-on.' Now he brought out the third photo, the one that had so unhinged him and driven him from the room. Now he seemed utterly collected, machine-like, cold. 'These marks were made with a very fine edge. A razor, or a scalpel. The cuts are very clean, very precise. Whoever made them was not squeamish. He probably enjoyed it. He's a sadist, obviously. He gets off on inflicting this kind of penetrating pain. But look at this one.'

Lestrade swallowed, focusing on the bright red IOU in the centre of John's back.

'The redness around the cuts,' said Sherlock. 'Inflamed. It's infected, and the skin is already trying to close together. This one was made first. About a week ago, I'd guess. And my guesses are usually pretty good. _This one_'—he dragged his finger to another IOU, smeared with blood—'is fresh. And this one'—he indicated another—'looks like it was made within the last twenty-four hours from when the photo was taken. Now _seven_ IOUs, and you received these photos in the afternoon on the eighth day since John's disappearance. One for each full day. He probably gets a new one every night.'

'But why _IOU_? What does it mean?'

Sherlock stepped back from the table, fingers pressed together in a steeple at his mouth. If he heard Lestrade's question, he pretended not to. 'And then, the text. _Find Sherlock_.'

Lestrade tried to meet his eyes, but Sherlock was not looking in his direction. 'They know you're alive.'

'Evidently.'

'How?'

Sherlock said nothing. His fingernails began again to dig into the back of his other hand.

'Who would be doing this?'

Sherlock shot him a look of impatience. 'Isn't it obvious, _inspector_? Moriarty.'

'Moriarty's dead,' he said, though with less confidence than he would have before finding Sherlock Holmes standing in the middle of his sitting room.

'His network isn't. And they want revenge.' He huffed, dragged a hand through his hair, and began pacing the length of the small room. 'They figured out I had faked my death, that I had survived where James Moriarty hadn't. How, when, I don't know. They want me to pay for what happened, but they haven't been able to find me, no, not on their own. The genius of their organization is dead, and frankly, I'm more clever than the lot of them put together . . . at least, I thought I was. I didn't realise they would find other ways of getting to me.'

He stopped pacing and placed his hands on the table, staring down at the pictures. There was silence for a long moment while Lestrade tried to think of something to say and couldn't. Then Sherlock spoke again, his voice softer, contemplative.

'They knew I couldn't have done it alone. They knew that _one person_ knew I was alive. They were right, of course, but not in the way they were thinking. No one thought of Molly. They believed I would confide in John, my own right hand. That's why they took him: to learn where I was, how to get to me, and to extract that information by any means. But John . . . he doesn't know anything. I made sure of it. He believed all the lies I wanted him to believe, and now he's suffering for it in ways I had never predicted. Stupid, _stupid_. I thought I was protecting him, but . . . This is all my fault. This is all happening because of me and what I've done. Because of who I am. John. His lover is dead, and his unborn child with her. If I find him, if he survives this, he'll never forgive me. He'll hate me for the rest of his life, and he should. I should have made good on that fall. I should have played Moriarty's game. I . . . _have_ been playing it. And he's beaten me. He's won. He's done exactly what he said he'd do and burned . . .' Squeezing his eyes closed, he dropped his head. 'It's because I survived that he's suffering now. My dear John.'

Lestrade realised that Sherlock was no longer speaking to him. Not anymore. It was as if he wasn't even in the room. But he wasn't talking to himself, either. In a way, he felt like Sherlock was addressing John and didn't know what to say, knowing the feebleness of words. He was sliding, falling, down into a turmoil of emotion, a realm with which he wasn't well acquainted or equipped enough to endure. Lestrade had to bring him back to the case, but gently.

'You're wrong, Sherlock,' said Lestrade. 'For once in your life, you're wrong. The game isn't over. And John . . . he didn't believe every lie. He _never_ believed you were a fake, or that Richard Brook was real. Never. He told anyone who would listen. You were his best mate, and that meant something to him.'

Sherlock straightened and turned his back on Lestrade to wipe his face. 'There's something I can do for him now. I can give myself up. Properly, this time. Finish the game.'

'Do that, and John is as good as dead.'

Sherlock looked over his shoulder at him, stunned.

'They're keeping him alive only long enough to draw you out. Don't you see? Reveal yourself, and they've no use for him anymore. Don't stop _thinking_, Sherlock, not at the most critical hour. You want to save John Watson? You'll use that superior intellect of yours to help me find him. We _will_ find him, Sherlock. And we'll get the bastards who are doing this to him.'

He saw Sherlock close his eyes and breathe. Just breathe.

Lestrade gave him the moment, but only that moment. 'We have enough for the next step, eh? A building erected in the thirties, renovated in the seventies, now abandoned. Probably here in London. That narrows it a bit, gives us places to start looking.'

'Why do you think it's in London?' asked Sherlock.

'A hunch.' Then, at Sherlock's dubious, ruffled forehead, he said, 'It's what we coppers of average intellect sometimes have to work from, Sherlock.'

'A refrigerator!'

Lestrade jumped. 'What the hell—?'

'_Chloroflurocarbon_,' he said, rushing to his microscope. 'It's a chemical found in refrigerants. At some point, Mary's body was placed in an old refrigerator, or a freezer.'

'But Molly didn't mention that the body had been frozen. There would have been signs.'

'Not if the refrigerator wasn't on. Yes. _Yes_, that's it! An unused kitchen or storage facility in the basement of an abandoned building. Not domestic—industrial. A chest, or a walk-in, something large enough to hold a body. Maybe two. Even if the unit hadn't been used in years, if it was _broken_, there would still be traces of the chemicals that may have seeped onto the floor, in the walls; they would have gotten onto Mary's skin and clothes. Now think about it. Ammonium hydroxide—household ammonia—is a cleaner, and Molly didn't mean sodium _and_ phosphate: she meant sodium _tripolyphosphate_, an industrial laundry chemical.' He slapped a hand down on the counter beside one of the Petri dishes holding a fine white powder. 'That's _it_. Wherever she was, wherever John _is_, it's got an industrial-sized kitchen and laundry. Oh, we're getting close, Lestrade. Can you smell it? We're getting—'

Lestrade's phone sounded. Not a call, but a text. Their eyes locked. Sherlock's face froze on an expression of delight, but the light in his eyes had been snuffed out. 'Might be Donovan,' Lestrade mumbled, going for his pocket, but he knew even as he said it that it wasn't true. Donovan preferred to call.

Sherlock knew it too. He came to stand behind Lestrade, even as he slid the lock on the phone. Not a call, not a text, and not a photo. It was a video, and it loaded slowly. Lestrade's heart was racing as he waited.

'Say hullo, Johnny,' said a voice, just as the video started playing.

The video shook a little, indicating that it was recorded on a hand-held device, but Lestrade saw John's face clearly when he lifted his head. His face was either dripping water or perspiring profusely; then Lestrade noticed the wet hair. He seemed to be drenched in water. It took a moment for John's eyes to find the camera, and another second for them to register that he was being filmed. When he did, a shadow of disgrace, of dread, fell across his face, and he dropped his head between his bare arms. The man behind the camera laughed, and the camera shook some more and began to back away.

'God no.' Lestrade heard the voice from over his shoulder, breathless, dismayed.

Lestrade understood a half second after Sherlock did as the camera reframed John, revealing him naked on the ground, wrists locked into a drain in the tile, and a large, imposing figure directly above him, pulling his hips into position and stretching his arms taut.

In the background, another voice. 'Ride him hard, ride him raw!'

He reacted instinctively and began to lower the phone, to turn away from the impending violation, but Sherlock reached around and put his own hand over Lestrade's, grasping tightly, holding the phone in place as they both watched the large man brutalise their friend. They listened to the man's repulsive groans of pleasure and John's heart-wrenching, pain-filled sobs as the speed of the vicious grinding increased. The camera never stilled. It circled the two bodies but focused always on John's face as he tried to hide it from view, and on the locus of invasion and the blood trickling down John's inner thighs, one which was dressed in a metal cilice, shining red. Lestrade's fingers lost feeling beneath Sherlock's vice-like grip, melding with the rest of his numbed body. The voice behind the camera was narrating, curdling the blood in his veins and offending every fibre of his being. And when the two men collapsed, panting and moaning, the voice said, 'Until we get Sherlock, little Johnny here will be our well-fucked bitch. Night and day.'

The video ended, the last image of John's half-hidden face frozen in anguish on the screen.

'Oh my god,' said Lestrade.

He couldn't believe what he had just witnessed, that it had been real. The years of chasing murderers, kidnappers, and rapists, of seeing what had been done to their victims, had not adequately desensitised him to the horror of watching it happen to a friend.

'Play it again,' said Sherlock without inflection.

'What did you say?'

'Again, play it again.'

'Jesus, Sherlock—'

'_Lestrade_.'

But when Lestrade couldn't do it, Sherlock took the phone out of his hand, turned his back, and again Lestrade heard the voice: _Say hullo, Johnny_. Why was he _doing_ this? Why was he torturing himself this way? Soon, unable to handle the rage and helplessness he was feeling, or maybe spurred by some new thought or hope, he would go off on his own again, leaving Lestrade to wonder how long it would be before the next contact, or whether the next body dumped from a van would be his.

How long since Sherlock last slept, or ate? How could he continue to function? What if he did something rash, something dangerous? He had done it before, many times, without batting an eye. All morning, Lestrade had been debating whether or not to do it, but now he felt he had no choice, for Sherlock's own good, and in the interest of solving this case. So he slipped a hand inside his pocket, pinched the tracking device he had filched from the surveillance closets that morning, a flat disc no larger than the button on a man's cuff, and slipped it into Sherlock's coat pocket—Lestrade's coat pocket, actually—which hung on the back of the door. Sherlock, too engrossed in the video, didn't notice.

'There!' said Sherlock, hitting pause. 'Two other men, in the background. Just their shoes visible in the frame. You heard one of them speak.' He shoved the phone into Lestrade's chest and grabbed his coat off the back of the door. 'Don't show the video to anyone at Scotland Yard.'

'What? Why? Wait, where are you going?'

'Square one. It's the best place to find the right trail.'

'You mean the jewellers?'

'The jewellers? No! Abducting John was move ten or twelve for these people. It's the _first_ _move_, Lestrade, that we need to start with: The player selects his pawn.'

He jerked open the door, and as he passed through it and threw his arms into his coat sleeves, he said, 'Send me the video.'


	14. Chapter 14: The Man Who Knows His Shoes

**Chapter 14: The Man Who Knows His Shoes**

**DAY 9**

**Thursday, 13.04 hrs**

_What the hell, what the hell what the hell_, Lestrade thought to himself as he stared at the hand-held GPS. All morning, he had been watching the little dot that was Sherlock Holmes race all over London. A moment ago, he had been on the banks of Thames, under a bridge, it seemed; now, he was on the move again, and fast. He must have gotten a cab. _And is paying for it _how_?_ That's when Lestrade thought to check his wallet. Sure enough, his credit card was missing. He swivelled so quickly in his seat toward his computer that he almost fell out of it. A few key strokes later, he discovered that approximately three hours earlier, two hundred pounds had been withdrawn from a cash machine a short walk from Barts.

_You could have just asked_  
_for some extra money,_  
_Arthur.  
GL_

He received no reply.

Lestrade's nerves were worn ragged. He had his and O'Higgins' teams all over London looking for John Watson, following trails based largely on the photos and the evidence recovered from Mary Morstan's body. But he hadn't turned over the latest bit of evidence—the video. Why the _hell_ was he listening to Sherlock on this one? He had no reason to withhold evidence. They were all working toward the same goal: to find John. Sherlock knew it. Why not have the men and women who were experts in technology forensics see what they could uncover? But damn it, he trusted Sherlock. So he forwarded the video to Arthur Doyle's phone and then, cursing his own ineptitude, deleted it from his own. Then, he systematically deleted all texts received from Arthur Doyle. There weren't many.

He fought down the urge to send the kidnappers either an enraged or pleading message. Neither would help.

'Sir, a Mr Mycroft Holmes to see you,' said one of the constables, popping his head into the office. 'He's from the government, I think.'

Mycroft? _Damn it!_ He'd completely forgotten there was another Holmes to concern himself with. Two weeks ago, he hadn't had even one. He floundered in his response to the constable while his mind scrambled for the best way to handle this. He had meant to ask Sherlock about seeking Mycroft's aid in whatever form it might come, but amidst the turmoil of recent events he hadn't found the right moment. Was _he _to be the one to announce Sherlock's return? He had no idea how Myrcroft might react to such a revelation, nor did he feel it his place to make it. All he knew for certain was what little Sherlock had told him: no one but Lestrade and Molly knew he lived, and he intended to keep it that way. So, against his better judgement, he decided to keep Sherlock's secret.

He'd been doing a lot of things against his better judgement lately, because of that man.

That didn't mean he wouldn't seek Mycroft's help on his own.

But before Lestrade could tell the constable to have Mr Holmes wait outside while he collected all these thoughts into neatly ordered rows, Mycroft Holmes strode through his door and dispensed with the _hellos_. 'I heard that the kidnappers have made known their demands. Well? You were supposed to contact me.'

Lestrade got to his feet, buttoning his suit coat. His team knew the ransom, so Mycroft might as well know it, too. Still, he felt he was betraying Sherlock's trust when he answered, 'They want Sherlock.'

Mycroft blanched. 'They want what, his body? They can't have it!'

'No, they want _him_. They believe he is alive and that we can deliver him.'

Mycroft looked genuinely flabbergasted. 'They're insane.'

'We don't disagree.'

'Why would they believe—?'

'They didn't exactly offer that up. They demand we hand over Sherlock, or they'll kill John. Those are the only terms.'

'But what could they possibly want with him? Are they'—Mycroft looked uncomfortable, as though speaking aloud some long-buried family secret—'drug lords? Russian mafia? _French?_ What did Sherlock get himself involved in?'

Lestrade shook his head. He couldn't say _Moriarty_ because even his team didn't know about Moriarty, and he still wasn't sure why Sherlock had reached that conclusion himself. It had something to do with the IOUs, but he didn't get the connection. But Lestrade didn't need to join the dots for Mycroft Holmes—he did it himself.

'This is revenge,' Mycroft said.

'Come again?'

'For Jim Moriarty. They must believe that Sherlock shot him on the roof of Barts—it's in the official police report, after all—and now they want their revenge. That's it, detective inspector, that's got to be it. Write that down.'

'So you think they're taking their anger out on John Watson?'

'Trying to draw Sherlock out, if they believe he's alive.' Mycroft was no idiot. 'I already told you: John Watson was the only thing my brother truly cared about. I wasn't the only one who knew it. I understand there are photos.'

'Who told you that?'

Mycroft gave him a patronising look and a cocked eyebrow. 'I want to see them.'

'They're classified.'

'_Lestrade_.'

'Look, Mr Holmes. I appreciate your concern over this case. I appreciate that you've come all the way here. But those photos are rather . . . sensitive. I wouldn't feel right flashing those images around, and I don't want them compromised. If we say, do, or know the wrong things, it might be very bad for John.'

'You still fear a spy. Don't you?'

Lestrade looked down at his own feet, knocking one shoe against the other. 'I can't talk about that.'

'Who else suspects?'

'No one. That I know of.'

'Just you.'

'Yes.'

'You need a friend, Lestrade. I can be that friend. I have resources you can't even begin to fathom. But you need to trust me.'

He sighed, considering this. Then he crossed to the door and shut it to give them some privacy. 'All right, look. I can't show you the photos, but I can tell you one thing. The day Sherlock jumped, there were three snipers with rifles pointed at John, Mrs Hudson, and me. If he didn't jump, they pulled the triggers. Moriarty's orders. The three snipers were never found, never identified, and it is very possible that they are involved in this kidnapping. One of them may very well work here at Scotland Yard.'

Mycroft's eyes widened with astonishment. 'How do you know this?'

'Don't ask me that; I can't tell you. But it's true.'

'That's why Sherlock jumped? To spare your lives?'

'Yes.'

'My god. I never . . . the things I thought, at that time. The awful things I thought . . . Greg, you _have_ to tell. _How do you know this?_'

'I told you, I can't say. But trust me on this.'

'I should have considered this. There were international assassins. Four of them, living on Baker Street. We knew about them. I told John.'

'Two were killed though. Isn't that right? They were shooting each other.'

'Yes, but the other two . . . I will get on this. At once. My people will find out where they are, in this country or any other, and detain them. We'll dig deeper into this matter.'

'Tread carefully, Mr Holmes. Like I said, if they know we're onto them—'

'Yes, yes, I know. But you know it will be worse for John if I do nothing.' He nodded briskly and turned to leave. 'And Lestrade. I meant what I said. You can trust me. Call on me when you need me, will you?'

'Thank you, Mr Holmes.'

**Thursday, 14.13 hrs**

Sherlock sat, folded one leg casually over the other, and stretched one arm along the back of the bench. With practiced nonchalance, he passed the other man a folded twenty pound note. The man took it without question and slipped it up the wrist of his ratty, fingerless gloves.

'You the bloke what was asking about shoes?'

'That's me,' said Sherlock indifferently. He knew how to play this: mild tone, no eye contact, limp body language—don't let them know you're desperate, or they'll be demanding more; and though he didn't care about the money (it's not like it was his own), he didn't want to get entangled in a drawn-out negotiation. Twenty pounds, upfront, in exchange for information. 'They say you know your stuff.'

'Used to sell 'em, I did. Eighteen years straight, before the economy turned. You know how it is.' The man looked him up and down, noting the suit (a lighter gray, not really his colour, but that was Lestrade's wardrobe for you) and the well-pressed shirt. 'Or maybe you don't.' Then his eyes fell to Sherlock's shoes: brown, worn, more befitting a hiker than a city slicker. 'Them's old, though, ain't they? Foreign-make? Don't quite fit the ensemble.'

'My feet are larger than my friend's,' said Sherlock off-handedly. 'Here.' He pulled out his phone and opened a saved file: a photo, or rather, a video still, that had been cropped and zoomed in on a pair of feet. 'Recognise them?'

The man took the phone from Sherlock. As he studied it with furrowed brow, he asked, 'What makes you think I will?'

_Because the laces on the right shoe are white and old, but the laces on the left shoe are brown, older, probably original to the shoe. Because someone with means replaces both sets of laces, not just one. Because someone who can afford to doesn't switch out broken laces with old, off-coloured ones. Because the homeless notice one another's shoes, and make trades._ 'A hunch,' he said.

The man laughed shortly. 'Hm. Well then, yeah. I seen 'em before. Them's Base Londons, pimple-three eye lace, casual lace ups.' He rubbed a hand under his nose. 'Four or five years old, maybe. Been 'round the square, those have. Not terribly comfortable, see, so chaps's always pawning them off'n some unsuspecting greenhorn, calling it a good exchange.' He snorted again. 'And I'll tell you what, I know just who's got 'em now, cos I know the tosser what gave'm to 'im.'

Sherlock managed not to react in any large way, but his heart sped up. 'Who?' he asked.

'Name's Caldwell. Ex-military or summat. Knows computers, gadgets, that sort of thing. Not enough to land 'im a job, mind, what with 'im being all funny in the head what-like 'e is. Most reckon 'e's mad, scary sort. Word is, 'e didn't adjust so well when 'e come back from Iraq or wherever. Been on the streets for a while now.'

'Caldwell,' said Sherlock.

' 'At's right, Pete Caldwell. Ain't a very happy bloke, from what I hear.'

'Where can Pete Caldwell usually be found?'

The man shrugged. 'London,' he said.

Sherlock sighed. 'One more thing.'

'Got another five quid?'

Ignoring him, Sherlock opened another file containing a sound byte. 'Do you recognise this voice?' He hit play for the thirty-sixth time that day and heard again _Ride him hard, ride him raw!_ He distanced himself from what it had meant, though with difficulty.

'That it?' said the man. 'Sorry, mate. Say, what are you, police?'

'No.'

'Private detective?'

'Nothing of the sort.' He stood and walked away. Before putting away his phone, he texted Lestrade:

_Peter Caldwell, ex-military._  
_See what you can find._  
_AD_

**Thursday, 14.51 hrs**

'Sir, a word?'

Sally Donovan stood on the threshold to Chief Superintendant Pitt's office. At his nod, she stepped in and waited for him to hang up the phone. 'Yes, what is it, Donovan?'

'Sir, I'm concerned about DI Lestrade.'

'Oh?'

'Yes, sir. I think he needs to be taken off this case.'

Pitts looked suspicious and folded his arms across his large chest. 'You're working the John Watson disappearance, is that right?'

'That's right, sir. We joined O'Higgins' task force yesterday. The thing is, forensics has uncovered some disturbing things concerning DI Lestrade, things I believe he . . .' She took a deep breath, wrestling with her conscience. 'Things I believe he purposefully withheld.'

'Withheld?' Pitts straightened in his chair. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, sir—'

'Sit.'

'Thank you.' She pulled out the chair. 'I don't know what to make of it all. But he was in Mary Morstan's flat not long before she was abducted. Saturday, he told me, but he wouldn't have said anything if fingerprinting hadn't put him there, and he wasn't very forthcoming about what he was doing with her. Now, I don't know what this might mean, but the photos of John Watson were sent to _his _mobile, and to no one else's. And this morning, technology forensics noticed digital traces of unauthorised access to the Watson case _prior_ to Lestrade's assignation. It appears . . .' She closed her eyes in disbelief at what she was about to say. 'It appears that DI Lestrade may have manipulated some of the evidence.'

Pitts's eyes narrowed in anger. 'Are you suggesting, Sgt Donovan, that DI Lestrade is in some way involved in the disappearance of John Watson and the murder of Mary Morstan?'

'I'm requesting permission, sir, to confiscate DI Lestrade's property—in particular, his office computer, work laptop, and mobile—for further investigation. I am also requesting his preliminary suspension.'

Pitts ran a hand across his eyes, incredulous. 'What does all of this have to do with Sherlock Holmes?'

'Sir?'

'Isn't that the kidnapper's alleged demand? _Find Sherlock Holmes_, isn't that what it said? It's a game, this, isn't it?'

Neither Donovan nor Anderson had told anyone, save Greg Lestrade, that fingerprints belonging to one Sherlock Holmes had been discovered in Mary Morstan's flat. It had seemed too ridiculous at the time. Instead, they had referred to the prints as Unknown Person A. Now did not seem like the best time to clear that up.

'I don't know, sir. We're working hard to figure it out. We all want to see John Watson come out of this alive.'

'He's the bloke that walloped me in the nose that night, isn't he?'

'Yes, sir, he is.'

He laughed without humour. 'Outstanding citizen. Top priority, is he?' He snorted. 'Yeah, you bring him home, Donovan. And you'll get your permission to confiscate Lestrade's possessions for examination. I'll take care of his suspension myself, if you turn up anything.'

**Thursday, 15.28 hrs**

'Hey mate, I thought you was dead!'

'I am,' said Sherlock. He reasoned that it was safe seeing Ewan again, or any of the homeless for that matter. The police didn't utilise the homeless as a network, not like _he_ once had, and in any case, they were far less forthcoming with police. The fact of his return would be made safe enough. Besides, Ewan had proven himself one of Sherlock's most well-informed and resourceful contacts in the past. He was hoping the reputation still held. With no further preamble, Sherlock handed Ewan a tenner folded inside the number for his mobile.

'Ta, mate,' said Ewan. 'What's sticking in your craw this time?'

'Know the name Pete Caldwell?'

'Soldier? Sure, I heard of him.'

'Know how to find him?'

'Last I knew, he was hacking into cash machines near Meridian Gardens. That was weeks ago, though. I don't think he's been nabbed. I can start asking around.'

'Do.'

'Anything else?'

'Yes. Recognise this voice?' Sherlock played the sound byte.

Ewan looked unimpressed. 'What, from six words? Nah, mate. Sounds like a rape though, don't it? This about the Slash Man?'

Sherlock's cool demeanour slipped. 'What?'

'The Slash Man.' Then, noting the look on Sherlock's face, he continued. 'Ain't you heard? Old Slash's been quiet for a while, but I reckon he's still out there.'

'Who's the Slash Man?'

'No one really knows, do they? Not by any proper name. That's why he's not been caught. Police looked into it a bit, with the first few, but you know how it is. Once it became obvious the Slash Man was only preying on homeless twats and arses, they stopped caring.'

'What else?'

'I don't know much else.'

'You must know _something_.'

'Honest, mate, I never seen him. Just stories. Like how _no one_ ever really sees him. Just a shadow. Shadow as big as an ox. And never stays in one place. Birds have been hit down by the Thames, blokes in back alleys, South London, North London, midnight, midday. Didn't think it could be just one man, but all the descriptions are the same.'

'_Describe_ him.'

'Like I says, I bloody well can't.' Ewan leaned forward and dropped his voice. 'But I can take you to people who can.'


	15. Chapter 15: Tales in the Old Friars

**Warning**: Please take note of warnings in the summary. This chapter contains dark, disturbing content. Discretion is advised. (Readers may wish to skip the section beginning Thursday, 22.17 hrs.)

* * *

**Chapter 15: Tales in the Old Friars**

**DAY 9**

**Thursday, 15.22 hrs**

_Lieutenant Peter Caldwell of_  
_Harlow, formerly of the British_  
_Army. File has been sealed._  
_See what you can find.  
GL_

Lestrade sent off the text to Mycroft just seconds before Sally Donovan and three other constables (Stubbins, Gibson, and Burch, from O'Higgins' team) accosted him in the hall on his way to the lifts.

'Your phone, sir,' said Donovan, holding out her hand.

He froze, and in the distance he saw two officers entering his office. Technology forensics. 'What's this about, Donovan?'

'Chief Superintendent Pitts has ordered the confiscation of your mobile and computer, and your office is being searched. These officers will accompany you to your house to turn over your laptop and conduct a proper search of the place.'

'_What is this about?_'

'I have the paperwork here,' she said, showing him the warrant to search. Her jaw was firmly set and her eyes met his in challenge, but he saw, too, that she was, what was that expression? Shame? Pity? No. It was regret.

'Sally—'

'There is reasonable suspicion that you have been withholding evidence in this case, sir, and until that's sorted, you've been ordered to step down. Your phone. Please.'

For half a second, he considered huffing and arguing and refusing to surrender anything. But this wasn't really a _choice_, and any protests he might raise would only make him look like he had something to hide. Then again, he _did_ have something to hide, a very significant something, and it was best that it stay hidden. But he couldn't ask for even one more moment with his mobile, to warn Sherlock not to contact him at that number anymore; they would think he was deleting files, phone numbers, messages. But if he simply turned it over, they were sure to uncover all the back-and-forth between him and one Arthur Doyle that he hadn't thought to delete yet. There was nothing for it. Stiffly, he placed the phone in her hand.

Unusually unsmug, she turned and walked away. At least she hadn't had him searched; the GPS was still in his jacket, and Mycroft's number in his trouser pocket.

Next he knew, he was in the backseat of a police car on the way to his own house, his mind turning rapidly. He needed to get to a phone. A mobile. He couldn't risk being overheard, so he needed to send a text. Over and over, he repeated Sherlock's number in his head, grateful he had memorised it but knowing that it would do him no good if he couldn't get to a free mobile, and soon.

He unlocked his front door and let the officers into his house. Once inside, he cast his eyes around for any evidence that he'd been housing a fugitive, but though Sherlock Holmes might have discerned it, he couldn't, and he doubted these officers would either.

'Your work laptop, sir?' said Stubbins.

It was left on the desk in the study. He pointed to it and said sardonically, 'Help yourself. Can I also get you some tea and biscuits?'

'We don't like this anymore than you do, sir,' said Stubbins.

'Oh, I think I might like it a little less.'

Burch headed upstairs and Gibson to the kitchen, but Lestrade stayed in the study to watch Stubbins pack up his laptop and riffle through the drawers of the desk and the rubbish bin. When it became obvious that they were all taking their time, Lestrade announced, 'I need a cigarette.'

'Thought you quit,' said Stubbins.

'Yeah, well, I'm a bit put out at the moment, being taken for a criminal and all.' He pulled back one of the books on the shelf and reached for a lighter and the pack of cigarettes he had stowed away there, once upon a time. They were old, three or four years old by now, and certainly stale, but the officer didn't need to know that.

He headed for the front door.

'You should probably stay here, sir,' said Stubbins.

'I'm not under arrest though, am I?' said Lestrade. He continued out the door.

On the edge of the pavement in front of his house, just within sight of his front door, he stopped, opened the pack, and pulled out a cigarette. Bringing it close to his nose, he breathed in. Damn, it smelled good. How much damage could just one do, after all? If anything, it would help. He felt wound tighter than a guitar string, more stressed than he'd been in months, maybe years. Just one cigarette, to soothe his nerves. He placed the fag between loose lips and raised the lighter.

But he paused. Down the pavement, a kid, thirteen or fourteen, was rolling toward him on a skateboard, and he was recalled to his purpose in getting out of the house.

'Whoa there, kid,' said Lestrade, stepping into the kid's path and putting out his hands.

The kid dropped his weight to his back foot, skidding the end of the board on the pavement. 'Shit, man, what's your deal?' said the kid.

'Got the time?' said Lestrade. He didn't recognise the boy, though that was no surprise. Despite all the years he had lived there, he hadn't gotten to know his neighbours very well, let alone their kids. It had been one of the points of contention between him and the ex. _She _had gotten to know some of the neighbours _very _well. He was away too much, she had whinged by way of defence, and he didn't seem to notice that a world existed outside of police work. She was right, in a way. He knew such a world must exist, but he hadn't seen it in twenty years.

'I don't do fags,' said the kid, noting the cigarette in Lestrade's hand.

'Nor should you. Look, I'm just asking for the time.'

'Why should I tell you? You a cop or something?'

'That's right,' said Lestrade, grinning.

'No shit?'

'No shit.'

'I didn't do nothing,' said the kid, suddenly apprehensive.

'Didn't say you did. Are you carrying a phone?'

The kid dug into the pocket of his puffy coat. 'It's half four,' he said, checking the screen.

'May I borrow that?' The kid started to balk, but Lestrade said, 'I promise, I'm not calling your mum.'

'She'd thump your arse,' said the kid, but he handed over the phone.

Lestrade worked quickly. First, he punched in the memorised phone number for Arthur Doyle, and then, after unfolding the slip containing Mycroft's number, sent a text:

_They are onto me. Send all future_  
_communications to 020 7946 0227._  
_Stop signing your texts._

Then, he punched in Mycroft's number and sent a text directing him to one Arthur Doyle:

_My phone has been compromised._  
_Don't call. Text 020 6835 0682._  
_No real names._

If they each believed they were still texting Greg Lestrade, well, so be it.

As his last act, he deleted both sent messages and handed the kid back his phone. 'Thanks, kid,' he said.

'Whatever, man.' He kicked off and rolled away.

Lestrade dropped the unsmoked cigarette to the grass, pocketed the rest, and returned to the house.

**Thursday, 18.40 hrs**

The sun was set and London was shivering. Sherlock pulled another fifty quid out from a cash machine and met Ewan indoors, in the warmth of a pub in Southwark called The Old Friars. It was noisy, but warm. As he walked to the table that Ewan already occupied, he noted the professions, temperaments, and habits of the thirty-four people he passed and decided that none of them was a threat.

'Drinks on you, eh mate?' said Ewan with a toothy grin, already nursing a lager.

Sherlock nodded stiffly, appraising Ewan's companions, two women and one man. One woman was in her forties and had been living on the streets the greater half of her life, twenty-five years, Sherlock supposed. She wore a hodgepodge of layered clothing spanning three decades of styles and smelt as if she'd spent the last three days drinking herself stupid. But she was sober now, and attentive, and watched Sherlock with both suspicion and interest.

The other woman was really just a girl, twenty-one at a stretch. Her hair was short on one side, long on the other, and had been dyed pink, green, and blue over the last six months. She had a nose ring, a heroin habit, and a girlfriend. She wasn't new to the streets, either, although she was a lot less resigned about spending the rest of her life there. Just that morning, Sherlock discerned, she'd been to interview for a job. She hadn't gotten it.

And then there was the man. Skinny, jittery, a boyish face but nearly thirty years old, and a dropout from uni where he had studied French literature, though he was rubbish at it. He was the newest to the life of a homeless sod, given the way he kept looking at his companions, like he couldn't believe he was mixed up with the likes of them. He still took the trouble to shave and buttoned his shirt to the collar, hoping to pass as a normal civ.

Before Ewan could make introductions, the girl put her hand down on the table to command attention. 'No names,' she said. 'Let's get that straight right away. I don't want this tracing back to _me_.'

The other two nodded, and Ewan consented. 'Fine then. _This _here'—he gestured to Sherlock—'is—'

'Arthur,' said Sherlock.

Ewan shrugged and continued. 'We all know why we're here. Art here's not a copper, he's just got a friend in trouble.'

'And the quicker we do this, the better for him. We clear on that?' said Sherlock.

They nodded all around.

'So you were all raped by this Slash fellow.'

They tensed, and even Ewan looked a offended. Sherlock winced inwardly. _A bit not good_, he heard in his head. That's right. Tact. Sympathy. He reminded himself that they weren't just data points needing to be processed. But it wasn't until he recalled the video of John, bound and naked on the floor, and his own debilitating horror at the sight, that he was able to tap into that more human side. What that man had done to John, he had done to them. 'Sorry,' he said, and he meant it. 'I'm a little . . . I'm worried about my friend. I need to find him, so anything you can tell me that might help . . .'

'I don't know how we can help,' said the girl, speaking for the others. 'None of us actually _saw_ him.'

'How do you mean?'

'The Slash Man makes sure of it. It's always dark, and his vics are always alone.' She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, suddenly very interested in her dark purple fingernails. 'When it happened to me, I was trying to fall asleep under a bridge on the banks of the Thames.'

'I was grabbed in a car park past midnight and dragged behind a building,' said the woman. 'This was in Whitechapel.'

'Under a tree,' said the man. 'Hyde Park.'

'When was this?'

'December.'

'January.'

'March.'

'Sounds like it happened all over London. How do you know it was the same man?'

They looked at one another. 'I'd say he was six-three, six-four,' said the girl.

'Sixteen stones,' said the woman.

'All muscle,' said the man. 'Like rocks.'

'White?' asked Sherlock.

'Yes,' said the girl. 'Even in the dark, you can tell a thing like that.'

But Sherlock wasn't convinced. He pursed his lips, debating. 'If you saw him, in the light, do you think you would recognise him?'

They looked uncertain, and the man cast his eyes around nervously as if Sherlock were about to produce him in the flesh. Instead, Sherlock brought out his phone.

The cameraman had been focused on John, and the attacker's face was never caught at a good angle. Nevertheless, there were a few shots that might prove useful. One captured the back of his head and the side of his face, a mouth gaping open in callous pleasure. He found the place, paused the video, and zeroed in on the shot to hide John from view before turning the phone for them to see.

The woman couldn't stand to look more than a few seconds and turned her head away, but the girl gasped. 'That's him! I know it!'

'How?' asked Sherlock.

'The kink in his ear. Right there. I only just remembered.'

Sherlock brought the phone back in front of his own eyes and saw what she meant. The man's right ear looked slightly pinched at the top curve, like it had once been cut and the skin had grown together again in a very slight point.

'I remember his ear. It was right in front of my face after he'd—. That is, I remember it,' she said.

'Me too,' the man said softly. The older woman nodded.

'Why do they call him the Slash Man?' Sherlock asked.

They each looked uneasy, eyes downcast, lips tight. The man and the woman had accepted the girl as their mouthpiece, and Sherlock knew they would say nothing. He controlled his own impatience. It wasn't easy. He didn't know if he should wait out the silence or press for an answer, or whether he should back off from the question altogether. Then the girl spoke.

'It's what he does. His fingernails—they're like knives, and he slashes at you with them. He leaves long scratches down your sides and hips. They're deep. They bleed. Some have said that they think he sharpens his nails, but I think that's just how they are. They're like claws. And he always, you know, takes you from behind. He doesn't bother to . . .' She swallowed hard. Her hands were balled in her lap, but she pressed on. 'Doesn't bother to, you know, prepare you, open you up a bit first. Nothing for himself either. It's all about friction. Like you're being sawed in half or burned alive. That's how he leaves you, feeling all . . . torn up. Shredded. Ripped and bleeding and wishing he'd just killed you.'

'You feel like you're dying anyway,' said the man into his drink.

Sherlock looked at Ewan, giving the girl some time to compose herself. 'You said it's been a while since you heard about him.'

'Months,' said Ewan. 'I figured he'd left London, or died. I don't know. Didn't think there'd been an arrest.'

'But how long had he been active?'

'Er, let me think. October of last year, was it?'

'Over the winter then?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's right. Started hearing stories late October, every few weeks right up through March. March was the last I heard.'

'It's October again,' said the girl.

The woman, so reticent to participate in the discussion up to this point, suddenly spoke. 'He lets you get cold.' The table quieted to hear her small voice. A few seconds passed before she could talk again. 'He takes everything off you, every stitch, and leaves you cold and shivering on the ground. And you're too busted up by then to run away, and if you try, you know it's another fist in the face. Nothing happens. He just stands above you like a shadow, while you're down there, naked, and when all you can think about is how cold you are, he starts.'

The others were nodding.

'And he's back?' asked the girl, gesturing toward the phone. Sherlock slipped it back inside his pocket.

'It appears so,' he said, gently. 'But you needn't worry about him stalking the shadows of London anymore.'

'Why's that, eh?' asked Ewan.

'Because I'm the one who will find him. And when I do, I won't think twice before killing him.'

**Thursday, 20.02 hrs**

Mycroft would have preferred to call, or to meet Lestrade in person. He despised texting. His thumbs were not nearly as agile or narrow as those of the adolescent his phone was apparently designed for, and he would not tolerate fragment sentences, misspellings, or missed apostrophes. Deleting and editing, therefore, took him a while. But he respected Lestrade's directions and sent him a message at the new number.

_Lieutenant Peter Caldwell_  
_was discharged 27 months ago_  
_from the British Army for_  
_reasons of mental unsuitability._  
_He received treatment at Bethlem_  
_until his release summer of la_

_Damn the 150-count character limit!_ he thought. He needed a more modern texting plan. After sending off the first, he made a continuation:

_last year. After that, he_  
_disappeared. His family has_  
_since lost contact._

A few seconds later, Lestrade texted back.

_Explain mental unsuitability._

Mycroft sighed and continued his slow thumb-typing.

_Apparently, Caldwell had been_  
_suffering violent nightmares, which,_  
_he told on-site psychiatrists, had_  
_made him want to hurt his fellows._  
_It was declared a form of psychosis._

The response did not comment on these things but asked another question.

_What did he do in the British Army?_

_He was a communications specialist._

_That must be why you can't trace_  
_John's phone. Caldwell's found a_  
_way to block it._

Mycroft stared in puzzlement at the last text. He hadn't been trying to trace John's phone at all. It was Lestrade and his people who had been trying to do that. But then, perhaps he had meant the general _you_, meaning _anyone_. How irritating.

_Let me know if you need anything_  
_more from me and my people. Keep_  
_me updated._

He closed the phone.

**Thursday, 22.17 hrs**

His naked body was stretched out to its full length on the cold floor. _Day six, was it?_ he thought, when Moran sat himself down again on his bare arse, with knees hugging his raked, damaged sides. _Day twelve? Day twenty?_ He couldn't remember, he couldn't count, it wasn't important. How many steps from the top stair, how many times beaten, how many times strangled or burned or drowned or cut? How many times had the cilice been switched from leg to leg? Irrelevant. Like _night_ and _day_, these were just words. They meant nothing down here.

'Look at that, I've been drawing them too big,' said Moran. Then he laughed. 'I've run out of space! Already! After only eight days. Hm. Didn't think we'd be playing this long. Oh well. We'll have to move to a new canvas then, won't we?'

They rolled him. His back still protested the pressure, but the cool almost felt good. Such a paradox, that, the pleasure and the pain existing together, neither without the other. John blinked against the fluorescent lighting as he stared up at the ceiling. Moran smiled down at him.

'I like you this way,' he said, eyes dragging down John's body. 'We should have had you stripped down on day one. Not sure why we waited so long. I know Daz would have liked it.' He lifted one foot and set it on the other side of John, straddling him with scalpel in hand. Slowly, he lowered himself until he sat on John's bare crotch. He wiggled a little bit, as if getting comfortable, then frowned, saying, 'What's a matter down there, Johnny boy? Tired? Daz make you come just one time too many today?'

Moran leaned forward on his knees, then onto his hands, setting himself on all fours above him. His head hovered directly above John's, and he leaned close. 'Maybe you need a different form of . . . stimulation?'

He kissed him, lightly at first, soft lips against lips dried, cracking, and bruised. When he got no reaction, Moran licked John's bottom lip, then sucked it hard until a crack split open and he could taste blood. 'Salty,' he said with a smile. One hand ghosted against John's beard, still thin but patchy from all the breaks in the skin and red with dried, flaking blood. He pressed his lips more firmly against John's, and when John tried to turn his head in protest, he gripped him at the jaw with both hands, letting the scalpel fall to the tiles by John's left ear. Moran opened his mouth, parted John's lips with his tongue, and met with a wall of gritted teeth. 'There now,' he whispered, 'don't be a tease.' With the heels of his hands, he pushed down on John's jaw until it fell open. John had never wished to be gagged so desperately, but he couldn't even remember when they had taken it off. He was in and out of consciousness so often, he couldn't even be sure whether he had been awake for each carving.

With his mouth gaping open, Moran leaned in to fill it. His teeth knocked against John's, eliciting a short whimper of discomfort, and he stretched his tongue deep, rolling along John's own, running the length of the roof of his mouth, lapping at the sides, and exploring the faraway hollow, making him gag. At last, Moran pulled back and wiped his mouth. 'You taste good. Bloody. Bitter.'

_It's the ammonia_, John thought, though it couldn't compare to the acridity he tasted in his mouth now. Nothing at all like peppermint. He couldn't resist it: He turned his head and spit. Fire flashed in Moran's eyes. 'You'll want to play nice,' he said, taking the scalpel back in hand. He pressed a hand firmly into John's throat and began to cut him.

This form of pain no longer surprised him; it was as if his body was in a state of constant anticipation of it. Nevertheless, it was still an agony from which he could not divorce his mind. John grimaced as the tip of the scalpel once again found a home in his skin, beginning over the left breast, just over his heart. Here, the flesh was thicker and softer than the flesh of his back, and Moran took advantage of it, pressing the fine-edged steel deep, then digging, blood rushing to the surface and spilling out over his chest and Moran's hands. Maybe this would be it, the wound that bled him dry. The thought was almost sweet, but oh, how it hurt. His toes curled, his hands balled, and the wire bit even deeper into his wrists. The veins in his left leg pulsed excruciatingly against the barbs of the cilice. When Moran was finished, John, panting and quivering from the pain, looked down at his chest to see what had been carved. Smothered in blood, the marks were indiscernible.

Moran stood, held his own hand up to his eyes, and watched John's blood slide down to his elbow. For a moment, he appeared captivated by it, like he was witnessing his first golden sunset. Then, coming back to himself, he said, 'Knees.'

Daz and Pete hauled John up from the floor, setting him on his knees. When he felt his own weight on his tenderised legs, he tipped, and the two men, gripping his shoulders even harder, steadied him. His head sagged. For a moment, he watched the blood spilling from the cut in his chest slide down past his sunken waist and across the gnarled mess of torn skin on his left thigh, as he now wore the cilice on his right. Before he could watch it puddle on the tiles, however, or wonder how it was he could still be alive, Daz pulled his head up by the hair. With a grin, Moran stepped close and stroked John's cheek with the blood-drenched hand. 'How is it you are so beautiful? Even like this, bloody from hair to toenail? Maybe especially like this. You're just a plaything, aren't you. I play with your body. You play with mine.'

John watched him undo the buckle of his own dark trousers. Not long ago, they had been clean and neatly pressed. Now, they were blood-splattered, waist to ankle. Moran barely seemed to notice. Continuing to stroke John's cheek, he lowered the zip.

Instantly, John's mouth ached with the tension in his jaw as he clamped down firmly. Whatever happened, he would not part his teeth.

'There now,' said Moran, his voice sultry, as though he were trying to calm a frightened animal, 'I know that look of panic. Believe me, it will be better for you if you relax.' He pulled himself out; he was halfway there already. While he teased himself to full alertness, he removed Daz's hand and ran his own dripping fingers through John's hair before curling the short strands into his fist. Simultaneously, he edged closer and drew John's face to his crotch.

'I know you're thirsty,' he said. 'Take a drink.'

The head of Moran's cock, already glistening, rubbed against John's pinched lips. He squeezed his eyes shut tight. Despite the cold air, sweat beaded on his forehead and slipped down his face.

'It's going to happen one way or another, John. So I'll make you a deal. Open your mouth willingly, and I won't have Lex here video you being forced to suck cock, and send it to everyone in your phone book. Make me come, and I won't give you over to Daz. Not tonight, anyway. Drink me in, and I'll give you all the water you want to chase it down. What do you say?'

A wave of nausea spread from stomach to limbs, but he fought it. If Moran was telling the truth, then he could spare himself a modicum of indignity, and an hour or two of pain. And they would give him water. He craved it above almost all else. And so, despising himself, he unlocked his jaw and parted his quivering lips. Moran sighed out in pleasure as he inserted himself into John's mouth.

He tried not to think, or to feel, or to see or to smell or to taste, but his every sense was bombarded with the reality of what was happening to him. He did nothing at first, merely closed his lips around Moran's penis and held his tongue low and still. But Moran was moving inside him, telling him to _suck, suck harder_. So he did, trying to make short work of it, and soon Moran was moaning _yes, yes_, but John was unable to breathe. His broken nose had collapsed any clear air passage through his nostrils days ago. He broke off the suction to gasp, but Moran was bucking back into his throat, making him choke, threatening to make him vomit.

'Don't you stop,' said Moran, his voice gritty with need. 'Don't you fucking stop.' He gripped John's hair so tightly that not a few strands parted from his scalp, and he shook his head with his fist.

He tried again, but he felt like he was suffocating. Pushing against the man's thigh with his joined hands, he tried to pull away and dislodge the throbbing flesh from his mouth. But Moran grabbed the back of his head with his other hand now, pulled him even closer, plunged even deeper, hitting the back of his throat. He knew a moment before it happened that he would be sick. The gorge was rising from his stomach. He bit down hard.

Moran shouted and shoved John away by the face. At once, he heaved. Stomach acid rose to his throat and spilled out onto the floor. Next he knew, a large fist smashed into his teeth. He collapsed onto his side as his mouth filled with blood. 'Get him on the table,' he heard Moran say, panting and furious, and the room spun around him.

He felt himself lifted, dragged; then his hips slammed against the edge of one of the long tables as they bent him over it, legs limp and unable to find purchase on the floor. Pete pulled his arms across the tabletop and held him there, and Daz pinned his neck down like a dog. To one side stood Lex, taser in hand and itching to use it. Then Moran came up behind him, grabbed his arse, and spread his thighs.

'John, John, John,' he said in the seconds before he lanced him. 'Little fucker. I'm not through with you yet.'


	16. Chapter 16: Cold Box of Steel

**Chapter 16: Cold Box of Steel**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 07.34 hrs**

'You really think he's involved?'

Pitts sat grumpily behind his desk, looking up and Donovan and Anderson while his coffee cooled in his hand. This was not the way he wanted to start his Friday morning, with an officer arrest. He had to be sure there was just cause.

'I've worked with Greg Lestrade for eight years,' said Donovan. 'I never _would _have thought it possible. But—'

'But the evidence is hard to ignore,' finished Anderson. 'His prints were in the victims' flat. He definitely used his laptop to access the Watson files created by O'Higgins and his team Monday morning, and there is evidence that the time stamps have been altered, yielding an alternate timeline for John Watson's disappearance, thereby slowing down our investigation.'

'I thought he was upset to hear that John Watson had gone missing,' said Donovan. 'But now I think about it, I think he was mostly upset that it had been assigned to O'Higgins and not to him. He was probably afraid O'Higgins would turn something up that would implicate him.'

'What else?' said Pitts.

'Officers found a receipt from Grant & Chapman's in Lestrade's study, evidence from the original timeline we've pieced together. He likely used the invoice number to alter the digital records in the bank account statements.'

Anderson continued: 'Over the last week, Yard video surveillance shows Lestrade repeatedly taking calls where he removed himself to where no one could hear him talk, and Sally says he never shared the details of those calls, which we find to be highly suspicious behaviour. We've gone through the recent incoming and outgoing calls and messages on his phone. _Two_ unavailable and untraceable numbers, and frequent texts to someone named Arthur Doyle. We have found traces that many of these texts have been deleted as well. And sir, most damning of all, he's destroyed evidence.'

'_What?_'

'Lestrade received a file to his phone that's been deleted. It was from Watson's mobile, the same source as the photographs, so presumably it was from the kidnappers again.'

'What sort of file?'

'We can't be sure, but we believe it may have been video footage.'

'Based on what?'

'When a file is deleted, it leaves behind a footprint, and that footprint has as certain storage capacity. Texts leaves just a blip, photos are only slightly larger, but videos—depending on the quality—leave quite a large footprint because the original file takes up so much space. Lestrade was trying to cover himself by deleting it, but he obviously doesn't know how to hide a footprint.'

'The point,' said Donovan, 'is that if it came from Watson's mobile, it should have been turned over as evidence. But DI Lestrade told nobody about it, and he has destroyed it. He's not acting like a man trying to solve a case. He seems, rather, intent on covering up a crime. It makes me wonder, sir'—at this, she cast an uncomfortable glance at Anderson—'whether Lestrade may have been working in cahoots with Holmes . . . before. Creating crimes just to solve them. Puzzles. I never understood why Lestrade so frequently sought the advice of this _consulting detective_. What rubbish. And they were at it for years, even before Watson came along. What if there are more players out there than we realised? What if "Find Sherlock" is some sort of riddle? What if, somehow, Watson got caught up in the middle of their sick little games? Maybe he discovered something he never should have known. Now they're trying to shut him up.'

'Why not kill him, then? Why torture the poor sod?'

'Why create crimes just to solve them? It was a game with Sherlock Holmes. Maybe this is a game for Greg Lestrade, too.'

Anderson's face brightened with a thought. 'Maybe killing Mary Morstan was his way of getting the ball into his own court. He needed the investigation to fall to homicide.'

'I've heard enough,' said Pitts. 'Arrest the bastard.'

**Friday, 08.01 hrs**

Despite Sherlock Holmes' previous assertions to the contrary, Greg Lestrade was not stupid. He knew what they would find on his phone and what conclusions they would draw from that. He knew what their next steps would be. So when the police left his house and told him not to leave the city, he anticipated an arrest warrant would be issued in under twelve hours. They'd be back, but he would be gone.

Although he had no intention of turning himself in, he knew they would catch up with him sooner or later, and then he wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on. Deleting the video had been illegal, no matter how he justified it, and with that alone weighted against him (never mind all the other rubbish conclusions they would have reached), no one would listen to him insist on the existence of a mole. Not right away, at any rate. Being locked up would do John no good. So he ran.

But he didn't leave London. No, he was still determined to do all he could to save John, which meant helping Sherlock, which meant _finding_ Sherlock, or at least finding some way to contact him. He wondered if the genius brothers had figured out that they were in fact texting each other yet, not him. It wouldn't take long, surely. He wondered if they had learned anything useful from each other, hoped they had, but stewed with jealousy at being on the outside of the confidence ring he had set up himself. He hadn't wanted to reveal Sherlock to Mycroft, but the list of people he trusted at the moment was quite short . . .

Then he thought of her.

Her number was in his phone, not in his head, so he couldn't ring her directly. But a quick call to Barts from a phone booth revealed that she wasn't scheduled to work until later that day. That meant she was still at home.

Lestrade rang the bell.

'Yes? Who is it?' Her voice through the speaker sounded groggy, as if she hadn't used it yet today.

'Molly, it's Greg. Can I come up, please?'

'Greg? I, well, I'm not properly, but, oh, yes, of course.' The door buzzed open.

The building was old and borderline dilapidated, which was probably why Molly could afford to live there on her own. The cement stairs were cracked, paint peeled from the walls, and in front of her neighbours' doors were rubbish sacks, dead plants, and broken bikes. It was the sort of place Lestrade associated with drugs busts and domestic violence, and he didn't like the thought that Molly was living here, especially on her own.

He saw her unkempt hair first, poking through the crack in the door as she waited for him to climb to the first floor. When he got nearer, she backed away, pulling the door with her to let him in but using it as a shield, just in case any of her neighbours should see her. She wore flannel pyjamas, matching top and bottoms of green plaid, with a closed pink terrycloth robe over it. She was squinting, having not quite accustomed herself to the morning light.

'Sorry to get you out of bed,' said Lestrade, suddenly embarrassed for her. He wished he had given her some notice.

'It's all right, it's fine,' she said, flattening down her hair. 'Is everything okay? Have you . . . found him?'

He shook his head gravely. 'I'm afraid not.'

'Do you need me in the mortuary? I can be dressed in two minutes—'

'No, no, thank you, but—' He frowned. Lab work must be all she thought she was good for, and he suddenly realised what he was doing there. He had come to her not only because she could help, but, more importantly, because she was, well, not obvious. It wasn't because they were friends. They barely knew one another. If anything, she was flying just below that radar; no one looking for Lestrade would come to Molly Hooper. It must have been the same reason Sherlock had chosen her.

Looking at her now, he felt a deep pang of guilt. Here she stood in front of a sunken sofa, brown eyes enlarging and clearing as they adjusted to the daylight filtering through the parted curtains of her window (these were homemade too, he noticed, though not made so skilfully as Mary's, nor with as fine of fabrics), ready to be of use at a moment's notice. She looked small standing there, mousy, dwarfed by her oversized robe, almost a lesser creature. But her bookshelf, he saw, was stuffed with large texts on general and organic chemistry, human anatomy and physiology, pathology and haematology. One of the books lay opened on the coffee table, marked up and down in yellow highlighter and blue biro. Clearly, Molly had ambitions greater than remaining a simple mortuary attendant. She was intelligent if not timid, motivated if not a little . . . lonely.

Lestrade didn't know how to explain it. It was a feeling, not a deduction. But he had the distinct impression that he was the first person, other than her, to have set foot in this small, cluttered flat in a long time.

'Greg?' she asked. 'You look peaky. I'll put on the coffee. Would you like toast or muffin? Both?'

She crossed in front of him, heading toward the kitchen (which was more or less situated in the living room), but he put a hand on her arm to stop her. 'No. Thank you, Molly. Really. But I can't stay long.'

'What's happened?'

'I . . .' He laughed a little to himself. 'I have to find Sherlock.'

Molly looked a little alarmed. 'He's not been here.'

'No, I didn't think he had been.'

'Is he not answering his phone?'

'That's normally the problem,' he said, 'but this time, the problem is on my end.' He decided to tell her everything. And why not? Sherlock had invited her into the inner circle when he asked her to help him fake his death and keep his secret. And she was the one who had brought him back. She even knew about the photos and the kind of reaction Sherlock had had to them. She was already in deep, so why not pull her a little closer? In any case, it would feel good, he thought, to be able to talk openly to someone who wasn't about to call you an imbecile for not knowing what to do next.

So Lestrade explained to her about the suspected mole at New Scotland Yard, to begin with. He explained about the photographs and what Sherlock had deduced from them; about the video, though he was vague about the content, and how he had deleted it. He explained about planting the tracker on Sherlock and showed her the handheld GPS in his pocket, which was turned off to conserve its battery life. He explained that his phone and computers had been confiscated and that he was now under suspicion. He even explained about Mycroft and how he had put the two men in contact with one another but had no idea what they had shared between themselves. Lastly, and he wasn't sure why, he explained to her just how powerless he felt, how utterly incompetent, in the hour that John Watson most needed help.

'I believe that John is still alive,' he said after twenty minutes of uninterrupted exposition, during which time she sat quietly and absorbed every word. 'Somewhere, here in London. But I don't know if we are even close to finding him. I keep waiting for our break, you know? A shred of evidence to suddenly crack open and point us in the right direction. I thought it would have been finding Mary's body, or the photos or the video, but it's just their way of laughing at us, isn't it? Showing us that we have no clue and they're holding all the cards.'

'But _you_ have Sherlock Holmes,' said Molly faithfully.

'And I need to protect him as long as I can. Molly. If I am arrested, I need _you_ to make sure that Sherlock's investigation is not hampered.'

'_Me?_'

'Hear me out. It's not safe for me to be carrying the GPS tracker. It's not even safe for me to find Sherlock. If they are watching me and I contact him, they'll know he's alive. If that gets out, John's dead, and I'm guessing Sherlock won't be far behind. I have to continue searching for John on my own. The Yard is looking in the wrong places. I'm only one man, but I have to start somewhere. So Molly, this is what I'm asking you to do. I'll call your mobile from a pay phone, once every two hours. Ten o'clock, twelve o'clock, two o'clock. If you _don't_ hear from me at the top of the hour, wait no more than fifteen minutes. If I still haven't called, I've probably been taken into custody. In that case, you need to contact Sherlock. Tell him to stop using my credit card or they'll start chasing down Arthur Doyle next. And then contact Mycroft and tell him I'd like to call in that favour.'

She nodded bravely.

'Don't worry,' he said, trying to smile. 'They've no reason to connect you with any of this. And hopefully it will be over soon.' He pulled the GPS tracker out of his pocket and placed it in her hand. 'Battery is low, and the charger is at the Yard. Don't turn it on unless you have a good reason. With a bit of luck, I'll be back for it.'

'And how do I contact _you_?'

He held her gaze for a moment without saying anything, resisting a strange urge to tuck her tousled hair behind her ear. 'I'll be in touch.'

Rising from the sofa, he buttoned his coat back up, slipping her phone number into the pocket of his trousers. He would commit it to memory and then tear it up. When he reached the door, he stopped and turned to her again.

'How did he do it, Molly? How did he fake falling to his death?'

'Oh!' she said, the question catching her by surprise. Fiddling with her fingers and shifting her weight a little awkwardly, she said, 'Sorry, Greg. That's not my secret to tell. But'—she couldn't help smiling—'it was brilliant.'

**Friday, 11.20 hrs**

_Tell me everything you have  
on Alex Slough_.

The name had attached itself to the sound byte about seven minutes before when a homeless man, listening to it play, had turned to his companion and said, 'Ain't that that li'le weasel of a man Slough? He was always sayin' nasty rubbish what-like that, in that squeaky voice o'his. Bit of a perv, if'n you ask me.'

Sherlock wasn't entirely convinced, but the word of his mission had spread through the network, and men and women were coming out of the woodwork to listen to the recording, to tell him their stories and heard-tells of the Slash Man, and to say what they knew about Peter Caldwell, ex-British soldier. Now he had a new name.

Twenty minutes later, Lestrade texted back.

_Alexander Slough, originally of_  
_Crawley. No criminal record, but_  
_he was dishonourably discharged_  
_from the Territorial Army two_  
_years ago for 'immoral activity'._

Another former military serviceman. Interesting. And with the Slash Man's physique, he would not be at all surprised to discover that he, too, had once been military. He considered the threat of snipers from years before. They, too, certainly fit the military profile.

_Any connection to Caldwell?_

_Not on paper._

_Keep looking. _

He paused, thought. The copper at the Yard that was playing spy might very well be former military as well. Law enforcement was a popular choice for ex-soldiers. He began typing again.

_The mole may have a military_  
_background. That will narrow_  
_the list of suspects._

Even as he sent the text, however, he wondered what the deeper connection was. Caldwell had served in the British Army, Slough in the TA. One from Crawley, the other from Harlow. The chances of them having served together were almost nil. So what had brought them together? Was John's own history with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers in any way connected? John had rarely talked about his time in the army, serving abroad or otherwise, but then, Sherlock had never really asked him about it. He had deduced _army doctor_ and thought it enough information to fill in any relevant holes himself. Anything else was . . . irrelevant. Why bother asking whom he'd known, what he'd seen, what he'd done? Was any of it important now? What did these men have to do with Moriarty? He regretted, now, that he had taken so little interest in the John that had existed before they met.

_Find out whether Caldwell or_  
_Slough have a record of training_  
_in marksmanship, particularly_  
_with high-precision rifles._

A minute or so later, he received the next text.

_You are looking for a sniper?_

He rolled his eyes.

_No, you are._

Sherlock hopped into a cab and directed the driver into Camden to scope out an old, abandoned public school one of his network contacts had mentioned. She had been a teacher there, she said, before the place closed down. Twenty minutes later, just as he was stepping from the cab, his phone sounded again.

_I think I may have something._  
_I will meet you at Scotland_  
_Yard._

Was Lestrade a moron? Just waltz right into New Scotland Yard, would he? And watch the jaws hit the floor before being tackled to the ground? Irritated, he punched the letters of his mobile to send his reply.

_Absolutely not. Are you daft?_  
_Somewhere public but obscure._  
_Meet me at the Windstop Cafe_  
_in Camden, 1.00._

He put the phone away with a huff of annoyance and looked up at the school, standing on the corner of a busy junction. It was wrong, all wrong. John wasn't here, he could tell from a glance. But the cab had already taken off.

Across the street, however, was an internet cafe.

**Friday, 12.00 hrs**

'Hullo?'

'It's me.'

'You're okay?'

'I'm okay. Still running wild.'

They each laughed lightly, although the comment wasn't at all funny.

'You're at work now?'

'Just got here. I guess I shouldn't ask where you—'

'Right. Another payphone. Jesus, there are coppers everywhere. You don't realise how we swarm this city until you're trying to avoid us.'

'Coppers aren't all bad.'

'You mean me, right?'

More light laughter, this time with a touch of embarrassment on both ends.

'Any word from . . . anyone?'

'No.'

'Good. That's . . . that's good, I guess. Well, I'd better be off. I'll call again at two.'

'Be safe.'

'I will. But it's not me I'm worried about.'

'I am— Um. Okay. Bye.'

She hung up quickly.

**Friday, 12.39 hrs**

In that dark, cold box of steel, John saw Mary bringing him a cup of tea. She carried two cups, and when she came nearer in her slippered feet and soft yellow robe, he set aside the newspaper so she could seat herself in his lap and twine a leg around his. _Mm, thank you_, he said sipping from the cup she proffered. The steamy liquid slid down his throat and warmed his belly. He set it on the coffee table, slipped a hand around her waist, and kissed her neck. _This is good, too_. She laughed, leaned forward to set her cup beside his, and took his face in her hands for a long and proper kiss.

_Are you happy here, John?_

_I'm happy here._

In that dark, cold box of steel, John heard Sherlock shout his name from the doorway downstairs. In recent months, he had learned to identify the varying inflections in the way Sherlock said his name, distinguishing the exasperated  
_John _from the irritated _John_, the condescending you-don't-know-anything _John_ from the affectionate you-don't-know-anything _John_, the I-need-you-to-do-something-for-me _John_ from the far more complex I-need-you John. He prided himself on his apparently singular ability to recognise his flatmate's mood from that simple, monosyllabic utterance.

Today, it was the excited we-have-a-new-case _John_. He heard Sherlock's feet pounding the stairs, taking them two at a time. By the time he reached the door to their flat, John was already on his feet and halfway into his coat.

In that dark, cold box of steel, John paced the one-room flat, a phone pressed firmly to his ear as he listened to the voice on the other end.

_I'm sorry, Captain Watson, but your application to re-enter the Service_ _as an active-duty officer has been denied. You may reapply after a __waiting period of twelve—_

_Hold on. Hold on._ He was wearing the rug thin beneath his feet with his pacing. When he hit a wall in the tiny room he now called home, he slammed it with his fist and turned back to pace to the other side. _Denied? I was told this wouldn't be a problem. I was told that I would __be shipping out before the end of the year._

_I'm afraid you have not been cleared by the medical review board to resume active duty._

_That's— _He laughed out his frustration. _That's absurd. I'm in peak physical condition, I've passed all blood work and tox screenings—_

_Captain Watson, I'm not authorised to discuss the exact details of_ _your file, but the medical review board has strict policies regarding __personnel who terminate mandated psychological evaluations with __their assigned therapists._

_Mandated? _Assigned?_ No. No no _no_, you've got that wrong. I volun— _He took a deep breath to keep from shouting at her. _I voluntarily __attended sessions and ended them when they were no longer useful __to me. Voluntarily, hear me?_

_Our records show that your sessions with Dr Freemont were __stipulated by your superiors and that you wilfully terminated your __association against recommendation. It is Dr Freemont's professional_ _opinion that, currently, you are psychologically unfit to re-enter Her __Majesty's armed services. But like I said, you may reapply after a __waiting period of twelve months—_

John threw the phone into the wall and watched it break apart like shrapnel.

In that dark, cold box of steel, John tasted the tip of his finger, having dipped it in the clear liquid spilled on the countertop. Vodka. So she had lied to him.

Again.

_You're killing yourself_, he told her.

_Ugh. Stop being so dramatic. It was _one drink_._

_You told me you were sober. You told me it's been four months since you had even a drop—_

_Yeah, to get you off my back. Jesus, John, stop fretting. I'm in control_.

_Don't. Just . . . just don't, Harry._

_Oh, bugger off, will you? I don't need this, this, this _mollycoddling_ from you. _

_I'm not mollycoddling. I'm your brother, and I'm concerned. You need help. __Look, I'll move here. I'll find a flat, here in Bristol. I can help you work __through this, be your wing-man._

_Fuck off. You're the last thing I want in my life right now._

_Harry—_

_I said, get out! I don't want to _see_ you, I don't want to _talk_ to you. Just go away. Go._

In that dark, cold box of steel, John felt Colonel Stephens throw himself on top of him and drive him to the ground behind a wall just a breath before an explosion rocked the air. His helmet slammed to the ground, disorienting him but protecting his skull. Debris rained down around them, his ears rang, his mouth filled with dust. He coughed, trying to clear his lungs.

They needed to keep moving, but Stephens had him pinned. He shouted, but he could barely hear his own voice for the ringing in his ears. The dust was settling, and John looked up to scan for the enemy, to see if any other men were down. But they seemed to be alone. He threw his weight, and Stephens rolled off of him. John saw, then, that  
he was shouting, his face twisted in pain. Blood gushed from hip to knee, a leg torn apart by shrapnel from the blast. John threw off his pack and scrambled for supplies. He needed to create a tourniquet, to staunch the flow of blood. He radioed for help, but with the ringing in his ears, he couldn't hear the response. Desperately, he began to work on the leg while Stephens writhed. The ringing slowly ebbed as he cleaned and dressed the wound, his practiced hands flying through the motions. Then, through the radio, he heard the order:

_Captain Watson, do you copy? You need to get out of there. Now. Get Stephens and yourself out of there! Do you copy?_

He picked up the radio. _Copy that. We're on the move._

Taking hold of Stephens' arm, he threw it around his own shoulder and heaved him to his feet. Stephens was as responsive as a sack of flour. Move! Move! he commanded, determined not to see another friend die, not when he could save him. He had lost too many already, on the battlefield, on the table, in post-op. But he knew, deep down, that though Stephens continued to cry out in pain and though his blood continued to flow, John was already carrying a dead man.

In the box, John listened to a strange woman's voice, filtered through a phone from over a hundred miles away.

_I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Mr Watson. But your sister was in a car_ _accident tonight. The surgeons did all they could to save her, but . . . I'm sorry, __Mr Watson. I'm afraid she didn't make it._

In the box, John watched them lower Mike Stamford's casket into the earth. He tried not to feel anything, not the hot guilt in the pit of his stomach or the eyes flitting in his direction throughout the service. He tried not to remember Mike's wide-eyed panic as he clutched his right arm, that night at the pub when he had finally succeeded in getting John to come along. Then the collapse. He could still feel the bruises on his knees from where he knelt over Mike's body, administering chest compressions, screaming at the idiot onlookers to phone for an ambulance, begging Mike to _come back, come back_. But he was dead before they ever lifted him onto the gurney.

He didn't understand how a heart as strong and wonderful as Mike's could suddenly seize, and yet, a heart like _his_, which had been wrenched time and time again, should keep on beating.

On every side, he was surrounded by Mike's family, close and extended, his friends, his co-workers. Dozens and dozens of people, and yet he felt as though he were standing there, utterly alone.

In the box, John heard Sherlock say his name one last time: _Goodbye, John_. He watched him fall from a wall of white stone. Desperately, he fought his way through a crowd that seemed to be pressing him back. Struggling against their hands, he reached forward and touched Sherlock's cool wrist. Then he broke.

In that dark, cold box of steel, John smelt Mary's hair, fragrant with Suave shampoo, as he reached for her under the covers. He breathed her in, his nose grazing her cheek and his hand floating down her arm, not quite touching the skin, barely disturbing the fine hairs. Then her hand found his, and she pulled him close and rolled to face him. She touched his face, he felt the skin in the gap between her shirt and bottoms, she slid a foot between his legs, he lifted her shirt. Each ached for this—this intimacy, this closeness of bodies—and even when they were one, they tried to get closer. But they never could get close enough. It was never enough. He was surrounded by too many ghosts.


	17. Chapter 17: Interrogation

**Chapter 17: Interrogation**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 13.02 hrs**

Sherlock lowered his coat collar as he came within sight of the Windstop Cafe. He had meant to arrive early, scope the place, choose a clandestine but well-situated table from which he could see the new arrivals but they couldn't see him, and wait for Lestrade to walk through the door. Time had slipped away from him, however, and now he was two minutes past the hour. Maybe Lestrade would be running late again.

He had spent the last couple of hours in the internet cafe compiling a list of buildings in London that fit the profile he was working from, but like the Camden schoolhouse, none of them—no schools, no hotels, no warehouses, no factories, no hospitals, no restaurants—quite fit his qualifications: 1930s erection, 1970s remodelling, sublevels, isolated area. What was he missing? Maybe Lestrade's _hunch _was off and the place wasn't in London at all. In any case, the list for London alone was long. Searching each location would take hours, days. He hoped that Lestrade's team was at least being useful enough to scratch a good number of them off the list of possibilities. But if they reached the end of the list and turned up nothing, where would they go next? Would they have to wait for another photo or video to get another clue? His brained yearned for another, but his heart didn't know if it could take it.

Maybe it wouldn't come to that. Lestrade's last text had sounded more or less promising: _I may have something._ He was hoping for something that would illuminate the pathway ahead, even if it was only a pale, narrow beam. He needed it like he needed air. It would be enough, that sustenance. Though he did not acknowledge it, not even to himself, he was hungry and exhausted, mind and body; but though he could scarcely think straight for two minutes together, he did not for a second consider stopping or slowing or giving respite to his overworked faculties. He pressed himself onward, holding onto the hope that Lestrade was about to offer him a morsel of evidence to sustain him.

As he stepped into the street to cross toward the cafe, however, he stopped short and bounced back onto the pavement. A black town car had just rolled to a stop in front of the cafe door. The driver stepped out and opened the back door from which emerged a tall man in a long black coat carrying an umbrella. Sherlock threw himself behind a newsstand just as the man turned to face the street, scanning it left and right.

_Mycroft?_

What the hell was _he _doing in Camden? On _this _street? Directly in front of—?

And there he went, straight into the Windstop Cafe.

_Shit_.

Forget the oddity of Mycroft's wandering into a lowly street cafe. Why _this_ cafe? It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, not at this exact hour. There was only one reasonable explanation: Mycroft was monitoring Lestrade. He had eyes and ears planted in the Yard. Of course he had! He was Mycroft _bloody_ Holmes. Fingers in every pie he could reach! Chances were, he had followed Lestrade here, which meant that the detective inspector was already inside, about to be ambushed.

His hands flew to his mobile.

_Location has been compromised.  
You're being followed. Get out._

He didn't consider why Mycroft might be following Lestrade. He didn't pause to wonder what Mycroft might know, how he might help. In fact, he wasn't thinking at all. Only reacting. Sherlock spun on his heel and threw up his collar, angling as quickly away from the cafe as he dared without attracting notice. He couldn't handle an encounter with Mycroft. Not today, maybe not ever. Lestrade's reaction to his being alive had been awful enough. Mycroft's would be . . . unbearable.

The mere glimpse of his brother panged him, though not in the way it always had before. It was a face he had never planned on seeing again, certainly not in the flesh. He couldn't deny that a small but desperate part of him wanted to know what Mycroft would do if he saw him—as a study in human behaviour, he asserted to himself, nothing more—but he trusted it would be best never to know. His own words to Lestrade echoed in his head: _I'm here to find John. Then I'm leaving again_. He couldn't allow that resolve to waver. He couldn't allow the strings of a past life to wrap around him and pull him back. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, not to anyone. No one would thank him for the deception. In any case, three years was sufficient time to fill in any hole he might have left behind, and he doubted the hole had been very large to begin with.

He was halfway down the street when he realised that his hands were shaking. He balled them and let a grunt of frustration escape his throat, startling a small flock of pigeons into flight. This was the most important case of his life! He couldn't afford to lose control, to have a mind fogged by emotion. Sentiment!

His phone went off in his hand.

_I'm on the move. Where are  
you?_

Sherlock rounded the corner, walking briskly, thumbs skittering across the keys.

_Close. But it's not safe to meet  
just now. Be cautious._

_Who is following me?_

He hesitated, ultimately deciding it would be faulty to mention anyone by name. In any case, his fingers were unwilling to spell out his brother's name.

_You know your people  
cannot be trusted._

**Friday, 13.27 hrs**

It had been a long while since Mycroft had felt so agitated, eager to act but feeling boxed in. He wasn't used to that. The restrictions were not on his end, no, of course not. He had men even now looking into the matter of the assassins from three years before and researching the officers at Scotland Yard involved in the Watson case. But things were moving too slowly on Lestrade's end. Lestrade was withholding information, and Mycroft greatly disliked being kept in the dark. And now he was being followed? _By his own people? _He disliked that very much indeed.

The connection he found between Caldwell and Slough was tenuous at best. Both men's names appeared on a government watch list for ex-military personnel evaluated as being a potential danger to others or to themselves. Initial research hadn't revealed this straightaway because the list, which named hundreds of men, was monitored by multiple units and divided into three levels of priority—highly dangerous, risky, and benign. Both men were listed as _risky_. Also categorised as risky was John H Watson.

A coincidence, perhaps. And, like he thought, a tenuous connection. But not one to dismiss.

Somehow, this was all connected to the day Sherlock had died. Somehow, Moriarty's people were still active. But why the hell would they think Sherlock still alive? It didn't add up, it didn't make _sense_.

His phone rang.

'Report.'

'Sir, we have visual confirmation reports from our men in the field. Suspect codename Whiskey-Alpha-Sierra-Papa, confirmed location in Arad, Romania, as of checkpoint yesterday, 22.00 hours, Greenwich Mean Time. Suspect codename Romeo-Alpha-Kilo-Echo, confirmed location Porto Alegre, Brazil, as of checkpoint today, 04.00 hours, Greenwich Mean Time. Suspect codename Lima-Alpha-November-Charlie-Echo, unaccounted for as of most recent checkpoint; last known sighting was thirty-three days ago in Rijeka, Croatia, at 14.00 hours, Greenwich Mean Time.'

Codename LANCE. He was also on that list and marked as highly dangerous. Mycroft's team had included him in the investigation not because he was one of the named assassins but because of his covert association to all four; word was, he had been involved in training foreign nationals in marksmanship with high-precision rifles. He had also been known to be in London during the same timeframe as the Baker Street assassins. Again, tenuous. He was playing this one on instinct. 'Thank you, two-nine-six. Updates on Caldwell and Slough?'

'Yes, sir. Neither man had specialty training in high-precision rifles or sniper combat. Caldwell was a communications specialist. Combat experience limited to urban warfare and close-quarters battle. Slough began training in explosives, remote detonation, and disarmament but was discharged before properly certifying.'

'Anything else?'

'Not as yet, sir.'

'Fine then. Keep working, and keep me informed.'

'Very good, sir.'

Without delay, he began to text this information to Lestrade in piecemeal, thinking it would be easier to call but trusting that Lestrade had his reasons for restricting communication to text messages. When he was finished, he had to wait less than ten seconds for a reply.

_I need a gun._

He raised an eyebrow as he stared at the screen.

_What's wrong with yours?_

_Don't be daft, you know I  
haven't a gun._

Had Lestrade just called him _daft_? He sniffed. Apparently, the man got tetchy under pressure. Clearing his throat as though clearing away this offense, he typed back a civil response.

_I was unaware. Did your  
people confiscate it?_

The reply took longer to come this time.

_I don't know whom you_  
_imagine my people to be,_  
_but never mind. I'll handle_  
_this myself._

**Friday, 14.00 hrs**

Molly checked the time on her phone at precisely 2.00, expecting it to light up at any moment. When the time changed to 2.01 and the screen remained dark, she bit her bottom lip and said a silent prayer.

The door to the mortuary opened. She dropped the phone into the pocket of her lab coat.

Arnold Torrence, the chief medical examiner and mortuary superintendent, came into the room, followed by a woman with short, ginger hair.

'Mrs Hillock, this is Molly Hooper,' said Dr Torrence by way of introduction. 'She's a lab attendant here in the mortuary. Molly, Mrs Samantha Hillock. Mary's sister. She flew in from Calgary this morning.'

Molly extended a hand and bit back the social nicety _nice to meet you_. It was decidedly not nice, given the circumstances, and Mrs Hillock looked like she was on the verge of collapse. Her blue eyes were lined with red and her face was gaunt. But she accepted Molly's hand. 'I'm very sorry,' said Molly.

Mrs Hillock nodded stiffly, her eyes flitting briefly to the wall of large silver drawers.

'Mrs Hillock would like to see her sister,' said Dr Torrence gently.

Molly frowned apologetically. 'It may not be the best idea,' she said. 'In situations like this, sometimes it's best to remember them as we last saw them.'

'They told me you won't release the body,' said Mrs Hillock, her voice thick with emotion.

'Not at this stage in the police investigation, no,' said Dr Torrence.

'Then I at least want to see her. I want to say goodbye.'

Dr Torrence and Molly exchanged looks of reluctance but concession. Although it was inadvisable, they could not prohibit family from viewing the bodies of their loved ones.

'I'll give you your space,' said Dr Torrence, excusing himself from the room.

'If you would wait right over here, Mrs Hillock,' said Molly. 'This will take just a moment.'

Samantha Hillock stood to the side. Molly opened a stainless steel door and pulled out a rolling table on which lay the body of Mary Morstan, zipped up in a black body bag.

'Oh god,' said Mrs Hillock upon seeing it.

Molly turned to her. 'Are you sure you want to do this, Mrs Hillock? You can tell me to close the door at any time.'

'No. No, please. I—I need to see her.' She came forward to stand on the opposite side of the table from Molly. But when Molly reached for the zip at the top of the bag, Mrs Hillock caught her hand. 'The police told me she was murdered. That her throat had been . . .'

Molly nodded. 'We've cleaned the wound, but it's still . . . The undertaker will be the one to stitch it up, you see, if you mean to bury her. But it's not an easy thing to . . . to see.'

'I understand.'

She waited a second or two longer, waited for a word of protest or retreat. When it didn't come, she gripped the zip and pulled it slowly down to just below the shoulders. Then she pulled open the sides of the bag.

The tears Mrs Hillock had been holding back now fell, and a soft sob rose from her chest. She covered her mouth with a hand. 'Oh, Mary!' she said.

'Shall I give you a moment alone?' asked Molly.

Mrs Hillock looked startled at the prospect of being left with the body. 'Please. Stay.'

Moments passed in silence as Mrs Hillock simply stood there, eyes closed. When she was ready, she reached out and touched Mary's unevenly cut hair. 'Why did they do this to you?' she whispered. She straightened, sniffed, and dug inside her handbag for a tissue. Rubbing it under her nose, she said, 'Is . . . is John's body here, too? John Watson? He was her boyfriend. I know I'm not family, but . . .'

'John?' said Molly in surprise. 'But he's not— They haven't found him yet.'

'What do you mean?'

'They're still looking for him.'

'The police . . . they told me he was dead. That his body was'—she swallowed hard—'almost unrecognisable.'

Molly's mouth fell open. Tears sprung unbidden to her eyes and her throat suddenly thickened. 'I hadn't heard. I— You are sure? He's not here.'

'That's what they said. I'm sorry, did you know John and my sister?'

Molly couldn't answer. Instead, she glanced toward the door. 'Excuse me,' she said hoarsely.

She left the room as fast as she could without drawing attention to her haste and pulled out her phone. 2.14, and Greg Lestrade hadn't called. Oh god, what was happening out there? She put a hand on her chest and tried to control her own breathing, her racing heart, and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Instead, the time changed: 2.15. A tear splashed against the screen. There was only one thing to do, a promise to keep. She began to text a number she had memorised long ago.

_Greg's been arrested. Stop using_  
_his credit card or they'll track_  
_you._

She hesitated to share what Mrs Hillock had just told her; she didn't even know if it was true. And if it was, well, then, surely Sherlock already knew it. She would do only what Greg had asked of her. She hit send. Then she pulled out the slip of paper Greg had written on and punched in the number for Mycroft Holmes.

_Greg's been arrested. He needs_  
_your help.  
Molly H_

On opposite sides of London, the Holmes brothers extracted their mobiles and retrieved the messages. At the exact same moment, each closed his eyes and said, '_Shit._'

**Friday, 14.36 hrs**

'I want to speak with Sgt Donovan,' said Lestrade for the fifth time. For all the angst that was roiling deep inside him, he thought he was doing a damn fine job at displaying a calm, reasonable demeanour. He sat in an interrogation room at the Yard, on the opposite side of the table from where he was accustomed to being. One arm was cuffed and chained to the table. With the other, he drummed his fingers on the tabletop, the only sign of his mounting impatience.

'I already told you,' said O'Higgins, 'you got something to say, you say it to me.'

'You want me to say anything, you'll bring in Sally Donovan. There's a man dying out there, O'Higgins, and we both want the same thing: to save his life. And the only way that _happens_ is if I get to talk to Sgt Sally Josephine Donovan.' He sat back in his hard-backed chair and gave O'Higgins a stony, uncompromising look.

O'Higgins glared back. Then he threw up his hands and strode toward the door. 'Don't think I won't be listening to every word,' he said.

The door slammed. Lestrade waited out the silence in the tumult of his own mind, wondering whether Molly had been successful in getting word to both Sherlock and Mycroft and worrying that solving the case was utterly beyond his control and that the mole in the Yard had played his part too well and that any hope of ferreting him out was beyond reach. Above all, he feared that they wouldn't make it to John in time. The photographs and the video were only a brief window into what he had been undergoing. How much could a man take?

The door opened again, and Sally Donovan came into the room. They locked eyes as she shut the door, pulled out a chair, and lowered herself slowly into it. The fire of challenge still burned there, and of anger. She was _angry_ with him—he saw that clearly. She felt herself personally betrayed. So although Lestrade had never been especially fond of Donovan, and although they had butted heads repeatedly over the years, especially over anything with even a remote connection to Sherlock Holmes, he was eager to resolve her doubts on the point of personal betrayal. What's more, he needed her on his side. Allegiance with Sally Donovan, however, was not easily accomplished. She had no fixed loyalties but to justice. So it was to justice that Lestrade would have to appeal.

'You want to talk?' said Donovan. 'So talk.'

Lestrade adjusted himself in his seat and opened his mouth, but Donovan stepped on his first word.

'Who is Arthur Doyle?'

'What?'

'The number you've texted eighteen times since Monday. The bloke who signs his texts _AD_. Our records list twenty-four men in London by that name. Which one is yours?'

Lestrade smirked and shook his head incredulously. Had it really been eighteen times?

Donovan opened a folder and lifted a single sheet of printed materials. She began to read down a list:

'_Anything yet?_

'_Where are you?_'_What are you doing? _

'_Have you learned anything? _

'_Things are moving too slowly at the Yard. Please tell me you are making progress. _

'_Call me, we should meet._

'_Call me._

'_We need a plan. I can't do much on my own._

'_Stop ignoring me, Art._

'_They found my prints in John's flat. And guess who else's? We need to be more careful._

'_On my way._

'_Drop the earpiece in a bin.'_

'_Are you okay?_

'_I promise you, they won't get away with this. _

'_I'll send them soon. Don't get caught with them._

'_You could have just asked for some extra money, Arthur._

'_I'll dig up everything I can._'

God, that sounded damning, pulled out of context and attributed to a suspected mole. He could hardly blame them for arresting him. In fact, he halfway admired it. With the kind of evidence they had accumulated, he would have confidently arrested himself.

'Sounds bad,' he said.

'Sounds really bad,' she agreed without a trace of arrogance. That wasn't quite like her. 'So. Who is Arthur Doyle?'

'You wouldn't believe me.'

'Try me.'

'Arthur Doyle doesn't exist.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'A pseudonym.'

'Spot on, Sally.'

She refused to be ruffled. 'A pseudonym for who?'

'That's not why I asked to see you.' He leaned his elbows into the table. 'There's a reason I wanted to talk to _you_, Sgt Donovan.'

'I can't wait to hear it.'

'First, turn off the intercom.'

'No.'

'You're perfectly safe. They can still watch us through the glass. But this is for your ears only.'

Donovan sighed out her annoyance and signalled through the two-way glass. A red light by the door switched off. 'Right then. It's off. Now talk.'

'There's a mole in New Scotland Yard.'

'Is that a confession?'

'It's a testimony. Someone working this case has tried to throw you off the scent, and when that didn't work, when the evidence began to work against them, they manipulated you into suspecting _me_. They're doing a bloody good job of it, too.'

'I'll say.'

'Look. I started this off badly, but I'm no criminal. I want to see John safe again, more than anyone else here, I'd wager.'

'You'll have to do better than that, Greg. We have evidence that you hacked the Watson case before it was ever assigned to you. Your fingerprints were found in his flat. You deleted evidence from your phone, for god's sake.'

'True. All true.'

She huffed. 'Sounds like a confession to me.'

'I'm not denying those things, and I'm not saying I shouldn't be punished for them. But it was all in the interest of finding John Watson. _That _is my number one priority. So _listen_. I didn't trust O'Higgins with this case. No, that's not entirely true—I didn't like being on the outside of it. You already know how I feel on the matter. I have a personal interest in this case. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. So I decided to do a little digging myself. Like I told you, I went to see Mary Morstan. That's why my prints were in her flat. Maybe it wasn't protocol, but it wasn't illegal, either. While there, I checked the browser history on her laptop and learned that John had been searching jewellers.'

'We know this—'

Lestrade pressed on. 'He went to Grant & Chapman's on _Wednesday_, about 4.30 in the afternoon, and bought an engagement ring. I followed the evidence and spoke to the clerk, who gave me the receipt you found in my house. Later, yes, I abused my access and hacked into O'Higgins' files to see what more I could learn. I was frustrated that no apparent progress had been made. When I reviewed the notes, I was surprised to see that no one had seemed to notice the large withdrawal from John's bank account. At this point, no one from O'Higgins' team had even been to the jewellers. It didn't make sense, and I blamed O'Higgins for shoddy detective work.'

'Why not say something? If you were so concerned about John, like you said—'

'Self-interest. You got me. I didn't want to get suspended. I needed access to the Yard's resources.'

'You're a model copper.'

'The record of the purchase couldn't be ignored forever though, could it? The mole knew it. But by the time proper attention was paid, records had been altered and time stamps changed. When I realised this, I realised for the first time that there was a double agent in the Yard.'

'And you told no one.'

'I didn't know who I could _trust_. Was it O'Higgins? Was it someone on his team? Was it _you_? Of course, no one gave much credence to the discrepancy right away, did they? So what if the clerk's testimony didn't match the time on the video surveillance? Human error, that's understandable. Memory is a tricky thing. But technology? Infallible. Unless someone knows how to manipulate it. And it was only a matter of time before someone noticed. So they make the next move—throw suspicion elsewhere. Let it stick to someone for whom Sally Donovan already has misgivings.'

'What are you saying?'

'Think about it, Donovan. I know your character. When something is crawling under your skin, you don't grit your teeth and bear it. You scratch, and you tell others that it itches like hell. Who did you tell? Who knew that you weren't so sure about me, before you went to Pitts?'

'Come off it.'

'Who?'

'Who do you think? Anderson's the one who found your prints in Watson's flat, wasn't he?'

'And who else?'

She crossed her arms. 'What are you driving at?'

'When did you go to Pitts to beg permission to confiscate my phone?'

'You think you get to interrogate _me_ now? You forget, Lestrade, that you're sitting on _that _side of the table.'

'_When?_'

She threw up her hands, conceding. 'Thursday.'

'What time?'

'Afternoon. I don't know . . . around three o'clock.'

Lestrade nodded. 'And who put the bug in your ear around, say, twelve o'clock?'

'What bug?'

'Who suggested that I might be holding back evidence?'

Donovan lips remain pressed together, her jaw locked and her eyes hard. Lestrade could see that the fingernails of her right hand were biting into the sleeve of her left arm as she sat with arms crossed. She was listening now. She didn't like what she was hearing, but she was listening.

'Think, Sally. You know you didn't reach the conclusion that I was sabotaging the investigation completely on your own. You were nudged. Gently. A whisper, an implication. Maybe an innocent comment in passing, just to get the idea into your head and let it grow.' _Like before_, he thought. _Three years before now._ 'Think who it was.'

'Why?' Her voice was softer now, without its usual underscoring of contempt.

'Because Thursday morning, around 9.00, the kidnappers sent me a video from John's phone, a video I deleted and told no one about.'

He saw it now, the brilliance of Sherlock's telling him to withhold evidence, to go so far as to pretend he had never received anything and entrusting it to Sherlock's possession. The investigation would continue, not by Scotland Yard but by Sherlock Holmes. At the same time, it would draw out the mole. He wanted to laugh at the cleverness of the former consulting detective, to throw up his hands in incredulous admiration at the sheer genius. Instead, he did what Sherlock would have done, and tried to get someone else to see it, too.

'There is a mole in Scotland Yard,' he said again, 'working with the kidnappers, who knew that the video had been made. They knew it had been sent to _my_ phone. It's something they wanted people to see. The video once again demands the surrender of Sherlock Holmes. But hours pass, and not one person on my or O'Higgins' task force knows about it.'

Donovan shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Lestrade could practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes.

'So the mole carefully, subtly, plants the idea that leads to the action: check Lestrade's phone. What was said, Sally? "_It seems like Greg Lestrade is hiding something_"? Or maybe "_I wonder if Greg Lestrade hasn't told us everything_"? Or was it a little more blatant? Maybe, "_Those photos—why were they sent to Greg Lestrade, of all people?_" It wouldn't have taken much. Like you've already pointed out to me: my prints were in the flat. The beam of suspicion had fallen on me once already, hadn't it? Someone knew it. Two more steps, that little nudge, and it was a flood light.'

He leaned back. 'Whoever it was that whispered sweet nothings into your ear—that's your mole. And he knows where John is.'

Donovan swallowed and cast her eyes to the side. 'You think someone is playing mind games with me.'

_Wouldn't be the first time_. 'Yes.'

'What's to convince me that it's not _you_? You've not behaved like an innocent man through all of this, Lestrade.'

'At worst, my actions have been incongruous. You arrested me in the act of searching an abandoned hardware store from the list of abandoned buildings _our team_ drew up based on criteria _I_ provided.' Technically, that criteria should have been attributed to Sherlock and his deductions. 'Why would I do that, if not to find John? No, Sally. I'll say it again: I'm not the mole. But there is one. And the reason I insisted on speaking with _you_ is that you are nothing if not dedicated to justice. It drives you to do things like arrest your own boss. You want the bad guys punished and the good exonerated, regardless of personal feeling. It's why you put up with Sherlock Holmes, back then. You bloody well hated the man, and you knew, you _knew_, that we weren't playing by the rulebook in consulting him. You could have done more than just gripe. You could have protested. You could have gone to Pitts. But you never did, did you? Not for years. You knew that Sherlock got results, and ultimately, _that's_ what mattered to you.'

The door opened, and O'Higgins strode back in. 'I think Sgt Donovan has heard enough.'

'It _still_ matters to you.'

'Donovan, my office.'

'You can solve this.'

'_Now_.'

Donovan shot to her feet. 'Who is Arthur Doyle?' she asked again, a note of pleading in her voice.

Lestrade smiled. 'You know where to start.'

**Friday, 15.14 hrs**

Since receiving Molly's text the previous Saturday, Sherlock Holmes had allowed himself to fall asleep three times: for three hours Sunday night, again on Tuesday night while on the Tube, and once more on Wednesday night in a room Molly had set up for him at Barts. Nine hours total. He could hear the familiar argument replaying in his head.

_You mean you haven't slept in more than forty-eight hours?_

_I'm on a case, John. I'll sleep once I've solved it._

_Christ, Sherlock, you need to rest!_

_I know what I need: Mind first, body second._

_No, that's not how it works. As much as you refuse to admit it, the two are inextricably linked. When one suffers, so does the other. So here's what you're going to do: Go lie down, fall asleep. Your brain will keep working on the problem while your body recharges, eh? And when you wake up, your brain will catch you up. Go. To. Sleep._

Sherlock had snarled and said scathingly, _Is that an order?_

_Doctor's orders, yeah._

The bollocks thing about it, though, was that it had worked. With a refreshed body, the cogs in Sherlock's mind had begun cranking at an increased speed, making sense of details even he had considered trivial and irrelevant before. And it worked time and time again. After a brief respite Sunday night, he had realised that there was a mole in Scotland Yard. After Wednesday night's sleep, he had been able to see past the images of John in a state of torture that had unsettled his very bones to the clues inherent in the photographs.

Now, he was utterly depleted of all energy. He needed sleep. He knew it. He felt like he was running through water, like his mind was running on low bandwidth. But the thought of sleep was repulsive. Every hour, every minute, that he was not actually on the case was another minute, another hour, that John was being tortured. That thought drove him onward, made him push past weariness and hunger. His suffering was negligible compared to what John was being made to endure, so why give it any credence?

And now Lestrade had been arrested. He was disappointed in the detective inspector. Sherlock had been in hiding for more than three years, and Lestrade couldn't manage a couple days?

Idiot.

Granted, Lestrade had been a fugitive; Sherlock had merely been dead. Still, he wasn't in a very forgiving mood.

It wasn't until he stumbled down a flight of concrete steps leading to a tunnel below a street that Sherlock decided to take the good doctor's advice. Initially, he thought of returning to the Tube, slumping down in a seat and covering his face with a hat. It wouldn't be warm, but it would be better than trying to sleep outside. Then he remembered: Lestrade's house was empty, and only a few miles away. He still had ten quid, enough for cab fare. Once there, he would make himself some tea and toast and fall asleep on the couch, three hours, no more. It would be enough.

This he did. Before he closed his eyes, he noted the time on the clock on the wall: 3.27. He could sleep, then, until 6.27. But when he closed his eyes and sank into a dream, his mind did not continue processing the problem of abandoned buildings or crooked coppers. Instead, it drifted backwards in time, to his last day in London, three years, four months, and eight days before.


	18. Chapter 18: In the Interim

**Chapter 18: In the Interim  
**

**Three Years and Four Months Earlier**

_Sherlock opened the back door of the car and slid inside. He yanked the fingers of his gloves one by one, pulling his hand free. 'Go,' he said._

_Molly Hooper put the car in gear and began to roll away, slowly, through the cemetery, toward the gate, and away from the headstone bearing the name of the man in her backseat. Even though he had asked her to come, she felt as though she were intruding on a private affair. Just once, she glanced into the mirror. Sherlock was looking determinedly out the window, his face hardened as ever but with an expression on it she had never seen before and couldn't quite name._

_'Are you all right?' she dared to ask._

_Silence filled the car as he refused to reply, and she didn't ask again._

_He didn't speak at all until they were out of Newport, and the car hummed loudly down the motorway._

_'Have you memorised the phone number?'_

_'Yes.'_

_'Say it to me.'_

_She recited it flawlessly._

_'When should you use it?'_

_'Only if one of them is in danger.'_

_He nodded with difficulty. 'You'll never have to use it.'_

_'Will you . . . never come back?'_

_He turned his head from the window and looked up to the front of the car; their eyes met through the mirror. 'Dead men don't get to come back.'_

_In Portsmouth, he shed everything that had once been part of Sherlock Holmes. He stopped shaving, cut his hair so short it lay flat but didn't have enough length even to begin to curl, wore square-rimmed glasses. He exchanged his collared shirt for a t-shirt, dress trousers for jeans, suit coat for a pullover, and leather lace-ups for trainers. Standing before a mirror in a public loo, he barely recognised himself._

_The only thing he kept was a mobile phone with an empty address book._

_He called himself Roger Borniche, to anyone who asked._

_Borniche was a hound on a scent. _

_The spider was gone, but his web still stretched across Britain; many of its threads were still vibrating. He knew there were other players, pawns of the master chess player, perhaps, but still dangerous. Thieves, extortionists, drug lords, weapons smugglers, killers. They stood at the crossroads of the intertwining threads. How many, he didn't know, and he doubted any one of them knew all the rest. But the web couldn't be allowed to continue. The strings had to be snapped, one by one, and if it took him the rest of his life, he would bring down Moriarty's network of crime, unravel the web, destroy the masterpiece. He needed a new purpose, and vengeance was it._

_The first thread led him to Amiens._

_Borniche existed for less than a month. As the _Police nationale_ apprehended a small ring of Latvian sex traffickers based on an anonymous tip, a man who called himself Gustav Höcker arrived in Nürnberg. He was following a new scent now, a different vibrating thread, and it was moving quickly, jumping from city to city across Europe. Never staying two nights together in any one city, Höcker was constantly on the move, to Leipzig, to Berlin, to Poznan, Lodzo, Warsaw, Baranavichy. Here fell a fly, there a gnat, little prizes, and _snap, snap_, the strings collapsed. But something bigger kept alluding him, outrunning him. Abruptly, the trail went cold. Höcker disappeared. Erast Fandorin materialised and continued the journey eastward, suddenly aimless. But he kept moving. Always moving, as if stopping his feet meant stopping his heart._

_Wherever he went, he made no lasting impressions, earned no money, spent very little. When he had to, he charmed his way into dinner invitations and boarding houses, and when circumstances necessitated it, he vanished like a ghost. Already fluent in English, French, and German, he began to carry, among his meagre possessions, dictionaries in Polish, Russian, Kazakh. He ignored tellies but frequented internet cafes—for practical purposes and to continue his hunt. Nevertheless, he shirked the goings-on of Britain if he could, and never did he seek out information on those a man named Sherlock Holmes had once known._

_The hunt was distraction, a way to stave off boredom, but more importantly, and paradoxically, a way to keep himself from _thinking_. If he settled anywhere too long, unwanted thoughts began to press upon him and overtake the cool, dispassionate interior he needed to maintain. He shirked the unsummoned memories from better days, undesired longings he never imagined existed within himself—the yearning for friendship, companionship, things he never thought he would need or miss with such intensity. If he dwelt on these things, existing without them became meaningless. So he moved on (to Bishkek, Islamabad, Maharastra), embracing the challenge of another foreign tongue (in Jakarta, East Timor, Kyoto), the loneliness of rootlessness (through Perth, Port Elizabeth, Luanda, Lagos), the danger of being forever a stranger._

_Always, wherever he went, like a whisper in his ear or a shiver at the edge of his sight, the threads of the web vibrated._

_The clues were scant, but unmistakable: A new spider had emerged. It had already begun to spin. The strings he had snapped, the holes he had torn, were being repaired. It wasn't enough._ He_ wasn't enough. Not on his own._

_Still, he pressed onward, though everything about him felt heavy—feet, head, heart._

_He saw her in Sabha, Libya, when his name was Harun ibn Yahya, when he was off his guard and trying to barter safe passage to Morocco before continuing on to the Canaries where he would board a boat for Brazil, where he believed the trail to lead. His instinct was to disappear—but she had seen him first; and despite the beard, ghutra, and striped kurta, she knew him too. As for herself, she wore a silk blue hijab, and it was as if no time at all had passed—neither appeared far different from the last time they had seen one another._

_He walked away, knowing she would follow._

_'Mr Holmes,' she said when he stopped at a kiosk to buy a Coke. He bought two._

_'Ms Adler.' Then, before she could say it, he did: 'Let's have dinner.'_

_Shortly thereafter, they sat at a small round table set with food and wine, but neither ate a bite. She lowered the hijab and set it aside._

_'Have you enjoyed being a dead man?' she asked, leaning into the table. Her hand on the table stretched just far enough away from her own body to be unnatural—a clear invitation for touch. But he sat straight-backed in the chair, an arm on either armrest._

_'Without reservation,' he lied._

_'How fortuitous for you to have found me, two ghosts wandering in this great big world. Were you looking for me? I knew we had something special.'_

_'An unlikely coincidence, as like charges are far more likely to repel one another.'_

_'I don't believe in coincidence. Something drew us back together.'_

_'Perhaps,' he said without any real interest. 'Two positively charged particles, though inclined to repel each other, sometimes—though rarely—bind together when a stronger force takes over. It's called, rather unimaginatively, "strong force".'_

_'Sexy.'_

_'Protons and neutrons within the nucleus are held much more tightly together in that case, giving off a terrific amount of energy. An explosion.'_

_'Ooh,' she said with pleasure._

_'It's the process that takes place when detonating a nuclear bomb. Destroys everything.'_

_'Shall we give it a try?'_

_He smirked at her. 'Opposite charges are far more compatible. Leads to less catastrophe.'_

_'Mr Holmes, we are having dinner together. I do believe it is the end of the world.'_

_'You're not eating.'_

_'Doesn't mean I'm not hungry.'_

_He didn't reply. He sat in appraisal of her, a woman dead longer than he but who seemed to have adapted well in a new iteration of her former trade. She had lovers (her hands were scented with lavender, barely masking the smell of semen) who took care of her (her bracelets were hand-chased silver and her fingernails were manicured). The private room they were in was her own, lavishly furnished with a blend of Western and Arabic decor, including a four-poster on a Persian rug._

_Seeing that he was not won over so quickly, she steered the conversation in another direction. 'I do love Libya. Europeans, they all think it such a desolate and oppressive stretch of sand, but I find it highly tolerable.'_

_'Evidently. Been here eight months now, have you?'_

_She smiled menacingly. 'Yes, that's what I loved so much about you. That big, incomprehensible brain. I'm not going to ask how you worked it out—I know you are itching to boast, and I'm not going to give you that pleasure. But I also see how you have not adjusted so well yourself. You look like a lost puppy that needs handling. How long have _you_ been in this veritable oasis?'_

_'A day too long, apparently.'_

_'Do behave, love. You were pleased to see me. I know it. Fine, don't tell me. But do say where you have been since you died.'_

_He didn't give her that either._

_'No? Please.' She stared at him through long lashes and a simper. 'I'll let you boast. I'll be your most captive audience. Do me the pleasure, at least, of telling me about the fall. I read all about it in the papers—I still take the London news, you know—and never doubted for a moment that it was true. You fooled me, Sherlock Holmes. So clever of you. How did you survive?'_

_'I thought it plain to see that I didn't.'_

_She frowned playfully. 'You're not being fair. You must be dying to share the secret.' _

_His lips didn't even twitch._

_She stared intently now, watching his face with grave concern. 'Such modesty. So unlike you. You know you can't keep it a secret forever. How do you know that people back home will never tell, the ones who helped you? The people who are keeping your secret. Maybe they've already let it slip . . .'_

_'There are no _people_ to speak of. Only one person in all of Britain knows I am alive, will never say a word, and knows never to contact me.'_

_A corner of her mouth curled up. 'But now there's me.'_

_He glared._

_She laughed. 'You needn't fret, darling. You've kept my secret; I'll keep yours.' She stood from her chair and stepped nearer him. 'What other little secrets are locked inside that titillating brain?' She gently pulled off his ghutra, and his hair, long enough now to tie back into a tail, spilled out. She ran her manicured fingernails through the tangled curls, across his scalp. He caught her wrist to stop her._

_She accepted his hand on her arm as an invitation to sit in his lap. He leaned back; she leaned close._

_'You're an unhappy man, Sherlock Holmes. You've been unhappy for a long while now. It doesn't take super-human brainpower to see it. I can make you happy . . . for one night, at least. You can always beg for more.'_

_From the street, at some distance but not far, came the sound of men's voices arguing in heated Arabic. Curious, he turned his head toward the window, but she was not about to let his interest in a minor street squabble trump her. She grabbed his head, turned it back and tilted it up, and pressed her lips to his._

_Her lips were hot and his were cold, and for a short while she endeavoured to warm them—through stimulation, friction, thermal conduction. But the desire to see his eyes, wide with alarm or dilated with need, made her pull back, if only for a moment._

_When he had full use of his mouth again, he said, half apathetic, half scolding, 'Ms Adler—'_

_She didn't let him finish. With parted teeth, she again pushed her mouth against his, which was opened protest. Releasing her pent up lust, she kissed him passionately, in a way she was certain he had never been kissed before. She, on the other hand, was splendidly practiced. Lips, tongue, and teeth, working artfully together like this, had brought men of every walk of life and level of experience to whimper and go limp in the knees, to moan with pleasure and with hunger, to forget all other lovers, past and current, and give themselves over entirely to her, to do with as she pleased._

_Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, broke the suction of her kiss and pushed her away. He shot to his feet and distanced himself from her with three long strides. She stared after him in amazement._

_'You really are damaged, aren't you?' she said. 'Even more than before. It's not just a mask. The fog of delusion is gone, and you no longer believe in that higher power that is—was—yourself. What happened?'_

_He rubbed a hand across his mouth, and though his expression was a little flustered, his voice was not. 'Your wiles may work on lesser minds, Ms Adler, but not on mine. And I have no further interest in yours.'_

_She felt stung by his unequivocal rejection. 'Sherlock—'_

_'—is dead. And ghosts are made to roam alone. Good night.'_

_Leaving his ghutra behind, he exited the room._

_He slept that night as he had slept every night of the last fourteen months, alone and despondent. And like most nights, he didn't want even to think. But seeing someone from Sherlock Holmes's past had greatly disturbed him. She reminded him of a time he would rather just forget—a time when life was a game, a puzzle he alone could solve; when comfort had meant a microscope, a mobile, and a hot cuppa; when excitement had involved a dead body, a series of invisible clues only he could see, and a captive audience; when he had but to look over his shoulder and see his one friend, constant and stalwart, never far away._

_Only at night, in the slight, unguarded moment between awake and asleep, did he confess it. He missed John so sharply that he felt physical pain. He missed seeing the undisguised admiration, or the restrained and not-so-restrained vexation, on his face. He missed hearing John laugh, both with him, at him, and in spite of him. No one ever had ever laughed with him like that before, not like that. What's more, he had never been so inclined to laugh himself as when John was around._

_He missed taking the mickey out of him, remarking on his incapacity to see what to him was so transparent. But then, he missed how John sometimes could see better than anyone else—could see_ him_, at least. They had been in sync, more often than not, rowing together even if Sherlock was the only one who could see where they were going. John had trusted him implicitly, and Sherlock had trusted in him to do just that. All his life, he had never had a companion like that, and he never would again, and the void was an ache so deep he felt that death really would be preferable. And then sleep overtook him, pulling him into the same dream as the night before, and the night before that, and he fell . . ._

_The door crashed open and the light suddenly came on—he jolted awake. Before he could do more than fling the covers off his body, hands grabbed him up by the front of his shirt and threw him face-first into a wall, pinning him there. He grunted and strained his neck to see what was going on, but a man shouting in Arabic told him not to move and began to search him._

_Other men had come into the small hotel room, five in all, each bearing assault weapons. They began to toss the place, stripping and overturning the mattresses, emptying the single drawer in the otherwise bare desk, searching the toilet. What were they looking for? The only thing of value in his possession he had placed in a safe box in a bank, for safekeeping until he could secure passage out of this crime-infested desert._

_At last, one of them announced that he had found it, and Sherlock saw them pull from the pocket of his loose, white trousers, which were draped over a chair back, a hand-chased silver bracelet._

_His Arabic was still in its fledgling state, but he recognised one word: _thief_._

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, _he thought. _Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

_He rolled his eyes—at her pettiness, at his own idiocy—just before they yanked him from the wall and marched him out of the room._

_Harun ibn Yahya, who spoke only passable Arabic at the time of his arrest, was found guilty of petty thievery and sentenced to thirty months in a Libyan prison._

_His cell was narrow, so narrow (130 centimetres, he estimated) that he couldn't spread his arms to their full length, and not deep enough to lie completely flat. A mattress, beaten flat over decades of use, took up half the space, and a small, aluminium toilet took up another fourth. The walls were colourless. At least he could stand to his full height, and that's how he spent the majority of his time—standing, leaning on one wall or the other, looking out the narrow slot in the metal door. There was rarely anything to see, except for the eyes of the man in the cell opposite his own. He thought his brain might atrophy._

_Time passed slowly. He was let out twice a day for meals, three times a week for exercise in the yard (under the watchful eyes of semi-automatic-toting guards), and once a week for a shower. It was during these brief outings that he practiced his Arabic, less by conversing and more by listening, as the other prisoners were wary of his European accent (it rang of French). But once he got a good handle on the language, he quickly fell back into old habits._

_Dipping fingers into his half-eaten bowl of z'ummeeta, he overheard one nearby guard tell another he would be unable to attend that evening's supper. He had already worked out, from a glance, that they were brothers, and that the elder had been responsible for securing the younger's job in the prison._

_'Always with the excuses, Umar,' said the elder. 'This is three nights, now, you have declined my invitation.'_

_'I am sorry, Abuzed,' said the younger, 'but I am otherwise engaged.'_

_'I can read you like a book. It is because I am recently a wealthy man, no? You are jealous of my prosperity, is that not right?'_

_'Oh please,' said Harun ibn Yahya, attracting both guards' attention. He continued in his broken but perfectly understandable Arabic. 'He no come because he was lately with the shagging of your wife. She wear lavender perfume, much of it, to mask stink of goat. These last weeks, you both stink of goat and lavender. Now, only Abuzed, and Umar stink only of goat. She choose not to leave with you when husband gets much money, so now you no want to see her at supper. Why you no see that? Umar looks at sky when he lies.'_

_If he expected a brotherly quarrel to erupt from this, he was sadly mistaken about where they would direct their anger. They grabbed him up by his loose, stained prisoner garb and dragged him from the refectory, not back to his own cell but to a windowless room where they beat him senseless with the butts of their weapons, fists, and feet. Then they lugged him, half-conscious, back to his cell. When he came to, minutes later, he threw up in the toilet._

_As time wore on, his reputation spread. Soon, they were calling him the Mind Reader (he worked out the meaning of the word quickly), a name that chafed him with every utterance, especially because he was always clear about how he reached all of his conclusions. Prisoners in the yard got a rise out of asking him what the guards had eaten for breakfast, what occupations other prisoners had performed on the outside, or whatever else he could read in a man. He was rarely wrong, and he amused them into laughter and calls for more demonstrations._

_The guards, however, were far from amused, as people in authority rarely are by shows of brilliance from those they regard as lesser men. Whenever they caught wind of Yahya's performing more of his supernatural ability, they rushed to put a stop to it—cracking men in the heads with the butts of their rifles, never hesitating to whip or strangle or beat a man bloody. Then the prisoners turned their wrath against him themselves, and though he had once been an accomplished fighter, on the outside, in a former life, he was always outnumbered, often five to one. The guards stood by and watched, intruding only if they thought there was the danger that the angry prisoners would kill the poor son of a bitch. Then they dragged him back to his cell, which served as his infirmary. Only twice did they ever call on a physician, when it seemed he might not pull through._

_Senseless violence was not uncommon in the prison. He spent nights listening to interrogators cutting off screaming men's ears, paddling their feet, and burning their hands for such infractions as brawling, lying, and stealing, whatever the guards' current whim. Nor was he immune to their brutal hands._

_For what he was, a foreigner, and a wizard besides, the guards seemed to despise Yahya above all others. Even after he had ceased to yield to the requests to read another man's profession in the way he walked or his childhood diet in the way he chewed his food, he was still their favourite prisoner to punish. They 'forgot' to let him out of his cell for meals, sometimes for two days in a row, driving him to cup toilet water in his hands for drink. They threw stones at him as he walked placidly through the yard, a solitary target; their aim was good, and their ensuing laughter sharp. They tied his hands behind his back with a board between his arms and made him crouch while standing on a boxes—one foot on either box. The stress position swelled his legs and ankles, and when his muscles couldn't take the excruciating pain any longer, they collapsed. When caught staring too long or too aggressively at a guard, they lashed him to a pole in the centre of the yard, stripped him down, and let him bake until the sun went down._

_It was during one of his days beneath the unsympathetic sun, his wrists and ankles swollen in his binds, his pale skin blistering on his back, and his body bruised and dehydrated, that he decided to escape._

_Three days later, he was in the back of a lorry en route to Tripoli, mobile in his pocket._

_His passage wasn't free. The men—weapons smugglers—needed an Arabic-to-French interpreter, a service he was able to provide. His French was strong, given that he had been speaking it since childhood, and his Arabic improved daily. They provided him with false identification. His name was now Henri du Gard, and he looked nothing like his photograph. The only resemblance was in the beard. He cared little for the illegality in which his fellow travellers were engaged, not if it got him to Tripoli. It was a half-day's trip over poorly maintained roads, cramped in the back of the lorry with nine other men and boxes filled with military-grade weaponry. The suffocating conditions and the jostling of the lorry only aggravated his stomach ache. He wasn't quite recovered from his thirteen-month stretch of incarceration and poor nutrition, and his body protested each jarring bump, each jerk of the wheel. He nursed the bottle of water they had provided him like other men nursed scotch, but he felt little alleviated._

_It was the middle of the night, perhaps only six hours into the journey, when the lorry slowed, then stopped. The men looked at one another nervously by the light of an American-made, battery-powered lantern and clutched their AK-47s. A moment later, they heard shouting, and the sound of M-16s splitting the night quiet._

_What happened next was to become for him a smear of memories. The lorry sounded as though it were being split apart. A deafening screech of tearing metal as bullets punctuated the sides and backdoor of the lorry. A wrenching as the doors were prised open. Then he was seized. He felt cool, midnight air on his skin. Everything was movement, noise, chaos, like being caught in a tornado. His knees exploded with pain as something drove him to the ground. In the dark, he heard a solid _bang_, and the man on his left fell, executed. A hot metal ring pressed into the skin at the back of his neck, just at the base of his skull. There was nothing for it, no protest he could make, no action he could take. This was it. He closed his eyes and saw John, one last time, as before: stretching out his hand, shouting his name. This time, he wouldn't get to say goodbye._

_At the sound of a thunderous blast, a searing pain sliced across his neck like fire; he knew he was dead. He fell jerking to the dust of the road. At the same moment, the man standing over him died. His body collapsed on top of him, weapon still in his hand, and soaked him in blood. The roar of an engine. A man shouting in Arabic, _Get inside! Get inside!_ and _They're dead! Let's go! _The release of pistons and the groan of metal, then gravel spun into the air from hot tires. Then silence._

_He lifted his head, but in anguish dropped it again. With a shaking hand, he touched the side of his neck—wet and warm. He struggled out from under the body of his would-be executioner, stood on unsteady legs, and looked around. The light of a half moon revealed eleven bodies, dark mounds against a lighter stretch of desert road, even darker shadows spreading out from under the bodies in wide circles._

_Pressing his palm to his neck, he stumbled forward, toward one of the bodies. He pulled off the dead man's ghutra and wrapped it firmly around his neck like a scarf to staunch the flow of blood, but he could already feel himself dizzying. Struggling to keep a clear head, he searched the body of the man but found nothing else useful and so moved on to the next, and the next, collecting two water canteens, a fistful of banknotes totalling 456 dinars (he converted it in his head to roughly 230 British pounds), an M-16 to carry on his back, an AK-47 to hold at his side, ammunition, and a BK&T combat knife. Then he pointed his feet north, wondering how far he could get before the sun came up._

_'Holmes!'_

_He startled awake. His eyes snapped open to see the ceiling of a camel-coloured soft-wall military shelter. He lay on a firm military cot, muscles aching and joints stiff. A dull pain throbbed in the side of his neck, and flexing the muscles there, he could feel the pull of stitches in his skin. The adrenaline slowly receded from his heart and stomach and he slowly rolled his head to the right, taking in the entire shelter and the men milling about. Americans._

_Dull. Predictable._

_He sighed._

_'Never mind that now, Holmes. Your man's awake.'_

_He saw one of the soldier's pointing to him but looking at someone behind him._

_'Well, well, look who's back from the dead.'_

_He rolled his head again, this time to the left, and saw a US soldier sit on a swivel stool beside him, inserting the listening ends of a stethoscope into his ears. The doctor-soldier breathed on the other end to warm it before placing it inside his patient's open shirt and against his chest._

_'Uh,' said the doctor, 'comment vous sentez-vous?' His accent was miserable._

_He coughed, clearing his chest and throat. 'I speak English,' he said._

_'Oh good,' said the doctor. 'You didn't want to hear me attempt the Arabic.' The man smiled. 'How are you feeling today, Mr du Gard?'_

_'That's not my name.'_

_'No? Huh. We found ID on you—'_

_'A fake. Obviously. It's printed on recycled text 70-pound paper, not on a government-issued 30 mil PVC card. There's a bubble in the lamination in the bottom left-hand corner, and the hologram was most likely purchased online. An idiot would have spotted it.'_

_'Damn, son, you know your forgery. So what's your real name, then? You're obviously not French. British?'_

_He exhaled slowly, wondering what had stopped him from pretending to be Henri du Gard. He could have pulled it off so easily with this lot. He cast around quickly for his newest identity. 'Doyle,' he said. 'Arthur Doyle.'_

_'Well, Mr Doyle, we found you half dead on the side of the Gharyan Road. Where you headed?'_

_He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. 'Malta.'_

_The doctor handed him a large mug of water with a ribbed plastic straw; _US Army_ was emblazed on the side. He drank greedily._

_'Where am I?' he asked when he came up for air._

_'Middle of nowhere. Three hundred miles south of Tripoli, if that helps. Whole lot of nothing as far as the eye can see, yet somehow, the good ol' US of A saw fit to set up a base here.' He laughed good-humouredly. 'Had a bit of trouble, huh? Seems you were ambushed by weapons smugglers, but you managed to make it almost two miles north of the ambush site before collapsing. Gunshot wound. It missed the jugular, lucky for you, though you nearly bled out all the same. But our boys got to you in time. Looks like you've been baking pretty good in that nasty sun out there. You have burns and blisters that would make a Marine weep. Got a few mean-looking bashes and bruises, too.'_

_The soldier knew that not all his injuries had been the result of a single ambush, and his tone invited an explanation, one he wasn't inclined to give. He was an escaped convict, after all, and wasn't about to confess it. But the soldier didn't press him. After a moment's awkward silence, he continued:_

_'We did have to take your firearms. Hope you don't mind. You can keep the cash though.' He smiled sympathetically. 'Who's to say it isn't yours?'_

_'My phone . . .'_

_'We found your cell phone with your ID. It's right here on the table. No numbers in the phonebook though. Is there someone you need us to call? Embassy? Family?'_

_He shook his head. 'No.'_

_The soldier nodded, sensitive to his privacy, and didn't pry. 'Right then. You just rest up here, Mr Doyle. I'll be back in a tick to change those bandages and give you a little something more for the pain. If you need me for anything, just ask. Name's Holmes. Captain John Holmes.'_

_Throughout his entire body, the pain suddenly flared._

_They made no true efforts to detain him. Captain Holmes near as well said so when he commented on the US Army having no authority to enforce Libyan law. So once he was well enough and able to care for the wound in his neck on his own, he made plans to continue on to Tripoli. Captain Holmes saw that he was well outfitted for the journey, providing him with clothes, hiking boots, toiletry kit, and extra money. In his pack, he even included the BK&T combat knife. 'Just don't tell anyone,' said Captain Holmes with a wink._

_He would not go to Morocco, not now that Irene Adler probably knew he had been asking about it. He wondered fleetingly whether she had heard of his escape from the prison. Would she be admiring or affronted? It didn't matter. She was again a character in a narrative of the past. He wouldn't let her have any bearing on the future._

_He continued with his plans to go to Malta, but when he arrived he immediately sought passage to Italy—Ragusa, Messina, Catanzaro, Bari—before hopping to Montenegro. He disliked being in Europe again; even in Eastern Europe, things felt too close to familiar. So without a plan or a purpose, he made his way southward once more, into Albania and Greece, to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and, at last, to Cairo, Egypt._

_There, he rested. He had been dead for thirty-six months._

_He sat in a shabby and sparsely furnished flat, barely worth the fifty-pounds-a-week rent. His funds were nearly depleted, and he knew the time to move on was fast approaching. But he didn't think about where he would go anymore, or how he would get there, or anything. He didn't think about unravelling Moriarty's web or tracking its new master spinner. There was no joy in thinking at all. _Genius needs an audience_, he had once said. A single individual would have done, he thought. But then he amended the thought. Forget the genius. He meant himself. Just . . . just himself. And he didn't mean _audience_ at all. He meant _friend._ Without that, the soul of a man starved._

_He had been starving so long._

_He didn't want to feel this anymore, this pain._

_He wasn't tired of pretending to be dead: he was tired of pretending to be _alive_._

_If he thought of anything, it was a way out._

_Then he heard it—the musical ding, a bi-tonal note, followed by another raised half a step on the musical staff. Then again. Three times it played, and as if in slow motion he turned in his seat toward the source. His mobile lay upon the dresser beside the metal lamp. It was alight._

_As he reached for it, his felt his heart begin to beat again, in alarm, in fear, in wonder, and he opened it._

_A text from Molly Hooper._

You said never to contact you,  
but Greg's been here. John is  
missing. Will you come?  
Molly

_He stared at the screen, reading it over and over again, half believing himself in a dream, half believing this was a trick. His eyes narrowed in on three words: _John is missing._ They stared until they burned._

_Then he saw London in his mind, like a movie montage: Baker Street and Barts and the Tube and New Scotland Yard and the back alleys and the rooftops and the coffee shop on the corner of Bell and Corlett where John had once spilled coffee all over his trousers as they waited for a break in a case, and the stretch of Queen Anne Street where John had told him off for telling a strange woman at a bus stop that her fourteen-year-old son with whom she waited was addicted to crack, and the drizzly day near Battersea Park when a passing double-decker had hit a pothole, causing a terrific spray that left him drenched and dripping but John shielded and dry and laughing his arse off._

_John._

_Missing._

_He shot to his feet, stuffed the mobile into a pocket, and left the flat._

_Minutes later found him in an internet cafe, tossing a pound coin to the clerk behind the counter. Molly was surely mistaken, exaggerating, overreacting. She had misunderstood what Lestrade had told her. Besides, if John _was_ missing, why would Lestrade go to _Molly_?_

_He had questions, but he didn't return a text. A message in one direction was one thing; but to respond was to acknowledge a history, to reform a connection, and he wouldn't do that. Not without cause. He typed the words _John H Watson, London _into the search engine. The first hits, to his dismay, were from London news sites._

_'_ _Dr John H Watson reported missing on Friday . . .'_

_'Watson was last seen . . .'_

_'Police are investigating . . .'_

_'. . . no strong leads, says DI Jacob O'Higgins . . .'_

_He closed the browser and bolted out the door, leaving his chair spinning behind him. Then he flagged down a cab, jumped inside, and said, 'Cairo International. Be quick about it.'_

_He was going back._

_For forty months, he had avoided air travel—it was trickier than stowing away on a boat or crossing an unguarded border or fooling border patrols with fake IDs. But the British passport for a man named Arthur Doyle, which he had made himself upon arrival in Cairo, was damn convincing. Not one customs agent batted an eye._

_The red-eye flight lasted the longest five hours of his life. Sitting still for the duration, staring straight ahead at the tray table without seeing it, and pressing steepled fingers to his chin, he sank deep into his own mind, a place he had be disinclined to engage fully for so many months now. The wheels, rusty, again began to turn, and he oiled them by deducing the stuffy little world around him. The flight attendant: she played prostitute on weekends (he knew by the cut and colour of her fingernails, the piercings in her ears and nose, the way she applied her mascara). The man next to him: he was an alcoholic recently fallen off the wagon (it was in the way he held his scotch, how he glanced shamefully at the drinks cart, how he filled out the crossword). The woman across the aisle: she was leaving her abusive husband and taxing journalist career in Cairo and returning to live with her parents in Dublin (the signs were obvious, textbook)._

_Light the fuse, wind the clock, kick-start the engine. He need to get back in the game._

_At approximately five o'clock Sunday morning, Arthur Doyle disembarked the aeroplane into Heathrow Airport, carrying nothing but a mobile phone, a passport, and sixty-six Egyptian pounds. This he exchanged for British pounds, and he walked out of the airport, settled into the back of a cab, and directed the cabbie to the home of DI Lestrade._

_When he arrived, the sun was only just greying the sky. He gave the cabbie all but a fiver and stepped out onto the street. There, he waited , watching the house until the detective inspector appeared at the front door, still buttoning up his coat. Something turned over inside of Sherlock at the sight of him, something strange and wonderful, and he was beset with conflicting desires to hide and to shout out to him. He did neither. Instead, he waited impatiently out of sight for Lestrade to get into his car and drive away._

_It was best, this way. He couldn't show himself as he was—long-haired, bearded, dressed as an Egyptian street urchin. Before the day was out, yes, he would have his encounter with his former fr—. . . associate. But as he had been before, not as he was now._

_With the house now empty (he knew by the state of the garden, the burnt-out light bulb on the porch, and how the curtains hung in the window, that Lestrade was living once again as a bachelor), he approached it. He tried the front door without much hope, and sure enough, it was locked. Then he began to look around—at the doormat, the stones lining the bricked walkway, the ugly garden gnome—and a brick beneath his foot ever so slightly jostled. He bent down and wiggled it with a hand. Definitely loose. With fingernails now, he prised it up and out of the walkway. Sure enough, a house key lay underneath. He smirked._

_Once inside, he locked the door behind himself and went straight to the kitchen, grabbing an apple, which he chomped hungrily while making himself tea and toast. He found a cherry strudel in a paper sack on the counter and ate that, too. When he was satisfied, he ascended the stairs to the master bedroom._

_There, he stripped and showered. With Lestrade's shaving kit, he trimmed back his hair to the length it had been three years and four months ago; he cut off his beard and shaved his face smooth, collecting all the hair into a plastic bag and sealing it, to be discarded later, along with his clothes, in some faraway skip. He further invaded Lestrade's space and privacy by using his aftershave, his deodorant, and his toothbrush. Then he went to the closet and bureau, raiding them for everything from pants and vest to socks, dark trousers, and a dark-blue collared shirt. None if it was tailored for his own body, but it fitted him near enough. He finished off the ensemble with a black leather belt but found that none of Lestrade's shoes fitted his own feet. He would have to keep his own worn-out hiker's shoes, for now._

_When he looked at himself in the long mirror, he stared, bemused, not by the similarity to his former self (although it was startlingly familiar, so much so it almost hurt to look at himself), but by the difference to what he had once been. His face seemed older, gaunter—not because of age but because of _years_—and his eyes were a stranger's eyes. He couldn't look for long and he turned away, not liking the man who stared back._

_At last, he sought out Lestrade's laptop. Though password protected, he cracked it in under three minutes: it was a variation on a password Lestrade had used five years ago. The detective inspector should have known better._

_He researched throughout the day—hacking into St Elizabeth's private personnel records and into John's email account—to find everything he could about John that was available online. Nearly everything he found had been posted by someone else, never John himself. All of his emails were strictly professional. Then he checked the blog that had made them famous, that Sherlock had checked obsessively, back then, for updates. At first, he had been interested in reading narratives about himself, but as time wore on, he went there because it told him how _John _saw the cases they worked together. It was an utterly new and fascinating perspective, so different from his own. Though he rarely talked about himself in the blog, John's narratives were nevertheless a window in to the kind of man he was, how he thought, what he valued. The blog hadn't been touched in three years, but the last entry, dated June 16, caused his hand to freeze on the mouse._

He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him.

_He sadly closed the window._

_Contrary to her boyfriend, Mary Morstan had been more thorough in cataloguing the progression of their relationship, pictures and all. Sherlock devoured it all, every letter, every pixel, committing each detail firmly to memory, including the address of their shared flat._

_He needed Lestrade to get into the Yard's network._

_That was him, coming up the drive. He closed the laptop._

**Friday, 18.27 hrs**

Sherlock awoke, three hours precisely after having fallen asleep.

It was then that he realised his greatest mistake, that small, thoughtless error, the utterance of a single word twenty-six months ago, that had led to this terrible calamity, to John's abduction and torture, to Mary's murder.

He realised, too, exactly how to find John.


	19. Chapter 19: The Making of a Fugitive

**Chapter 19: The Making of a Fugitive**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 18.28 hrs**

'We're the same. You and I.'

'Do you hear me, John? We're the same. One man in two different lives—alternate renditions of a single person. We're brave. We've the discipline of soldiers and the hearts of fighters. Hot tempers, a high tolerance for pain, a readiness to strike, an instinct to kill.'

'We're loyal to the bone. Fidelity is in the fabric of our being. We've sworn allegiance to men greater than ourselves; we've dedicated ourselves with unfailing, _compulsive_ devotion, to the point where we would do anything, _anything_, in their names.'

'We're honest. You said you didn't know where he is, and you don't. And I said I would break you, and I have.'

'Because you see, in the end, I am better.'

'I have served the greater master. When mine left me, he gave me a kingdom. Yours cast you down to hell.'

'Where is he, my dear John? Why has he not come? Is it because, when it comes to it, you were never anything more than a _dog_ to him? A cute little pup, yapping at his heels all the days of your short-lived acquaintance, a thing to pet and give treats to, to scold and to cuddle? But a dog, as every master knows, is not the equal of a man. He never can be.'

'A dog sacrifices himself for his master, doesn't he? But what man ever gave up his life for a mongrel?'

'You're a dog, John Watson. Just a dog. Sherlock Holmes barely has interest in _people_. Why would he give a damn about _you_?'

'He's given you up. Spit you out like old gum. Snipped you off like a hangnail. You're rubbish in a second-hand store.'

'But I see the value of you. You're mine now. Moan for me, John. Gasp at the unrivalled power of your new master, and love me. Your loyalty belongs to me, now. Your mind and body are forevermore filled with _me_.'

'He's never coming.'

'You are mine.'

**Friday, 18.44 hrs**

A light had gone on.

That is, it was all about the _lighting_. Why hadn't he thought about the _lighting_? Three years ago, the significance of it would have registered instantly, but his skills were out of practice. He hated himself for having been so lax with them.

They were fluorescent bulbs—he could tell from the video. Flickering fluorescent lighting in that dank, sublevel room, with its seventies-style tiled floors in a thirties-era-erected building, somewhere in London (against the grain of his evidence-reliant character, he trusted Lestrade's hunch on that one). An abandoned building? Had to be. _Had _to be. But if it were, then why was it still connected to the grid?

Why was a deserted building still being fed electricity?

Because it wasn't listed as abandoned, or deserted, or derelict, or condemned. The kidnappers were still playing Moriarty's game, the one that had destroyed him. Each move of a chess piece had been simple, classic, not needlessly clever, not a reinvention of the wheel. Bribery. Pay off the record keeper, change the records.

So then, there had to be a paper trail.

He was looking for a building that had _once_ been listed as abandoned, but that hadn't made its way back onto a list of active sites. That ran the risk of calling attention to itself; it invited an inspection. _Wouldn't it? Of course it would. Stop doubting yourself. _So what are the other options? A building of public record didn't simply disappear.

_Okay, so back up. List the facts. Rule out the impossible._ An unused building fitting the already established criteria that was still receiving power but on neither abandoned nor active site listings. What does that leave?

Demolished.

On paper, it had to be listed as demolished. A hacker, a mole, could easily manipulate the electronic files of a demolition company, changing the record from _in process_ to _complete_. It would disappear from the listings of abandoned buildings. Someone would notice eventually, sure, but not right away, not soon enough, not if it wasn't scheduled for demolition for several weeks or months yet.

For anyone looking for his criteria, like the officers of New Scotland Yard, it would be invisible. They weren't checking demolition sites.

He needed to cross reference a listing of recently demolished buildings within a time frame of . . . thirty days_—yes, thirty days, a billing cycle_—with a list of buildings provided service by London Electric. If an address showed up on both lists . . .

He would find John.

**Friday, 20.58 hrs**

'Sir, I have transfer-of-custody orders here, to be carried out immediately.'

Chief Superintendent Pitts looked up from the mountain of paperwork on his desk to see Sally Donovan standing in his doorway once again, one foot on either side of the threshold and a thin manila folder in her hand. He was getting tired of the sight.

'Whose transfer?' he asked.

'Greg Lestrade's.'

'_What?_ To where? By whose authority!' His eyes filled the thick square frames of his glasses.

'MI5.' She stepped further into the room and passed over the file for his signature. 'Secret service arrived five minutes ago with the order.'

'This is bloody outrageous,' he said. He opened the file and read the order. His eyes hit a word and narrowed to slits. 'Holmes. _Mycroft_ Holmes. Please tell me there's no relationship here to—'

'Sherlock Holmes' older brother, I believe,' she said.

'What's going on here, Sally?'

'I'd very much like to know that myself, sir.'

'They've no business with him, not unless. . . . Good god, treason? National security? Have the big boys had their eyes on him all this time, suspecting and waiting for him to slip up? Couldn't bother telling us down here at the lowly Scotland bloomin' Yard? Just let us deal with the mess he's made of this case? Bloody hell! I don't like this. I don't like it one smidge.'

'Nor I, sir.'

He sat there, fuming, biro in hand but unwilling to sign the transference order. He slammed the pen down. 'Conspiracies at the highest level! _Government_ conspiracies, and those Holmes brothers are at the heart of it all. What has the Watson fellow gotten himself mixed up in? Poor sod. Poor bloody bastard. They'll leave _us_ to deal with his corpse. I guess we can count ourselves lucky the bloke doesn't have any family to get upset over this on his behalf. All the same: _damn_ Lestrade!'

'What will you do, sir?'

'What choice do I have. It's the bloody government. I'll sign the order, that's what I'll do. Make Lestrade _their_ problem.' Shaking his head in disgust, he signed the order and thrust is back to Donovan. 'Get him the hell out of Scotland Yard.'

**Friday, 21.09 hrs**

'Orders from on high,' said Donovan. 'You're being transferred to Home Office.'

Lestrade had been sitting in the same room, in the same chair, chained to the same table, for eight hours now. He had been interrogated by everyone from Pitts to O'Higgins to Donovan. In all that time, he'd drunk barely half a glass of water, and with each passing hour, he grew more and more frenetic and restless beneath his mask of calm. Now, however, he was visibly wary.

'Whose orders?'

'I told you: Home Office.'

'I want a name.'

'You don't get to make demands.'

'Do you have paperwork?' he asked.

'We wouldn't be handing you over if we didn't.'

'I want to see it.'

'Pitts has it. He's signed it, and our orders are to comply without delay. These officers are here to escort you to the secret service agents waiting outside.'

Why were they waiting outside? Steadying his breathing, he jingled the silver bracelet. 'Go on, then,' he said.

She nodded to the officers, indicating that they should wait in the hall. When she turned back to him, she said, 'Not going to try anything funny, are you?'

'In the middle of Scotland Yard? I'm not mad.'

'Could have fooled me.'

She crossed the room, and he lifted his cuffed wrist. To his surprise, she moved without the usual efficiency he had come to expect of Sally Donovan, taking her time finding the right key as she sat on the corner of the table nearest his chair, her back to both the door and the two-way mirror. Then she spoke, her head angled toward his but her mouth barely moving; he had to lean in to hear.

'Stubbins,' she said. At first, he didn't make sense of what she was saying, but her guarded manner precluded him from showing any outward signs of confusion and then, a breath later, alarm. 'Everett Stubbins. That's who put the bug in my ear.' She twisted the key and unlocked the steel chained to the table. Then, in her normal brash voice, she said, 'On your feet.'

Heart thumping, he pushed his chair back and stood. While she cuffed his hands together in front, he said in a low voice, 'Sally. Sally, you have to do something.'

'I know.'

'You have to tell O'Higgins.'

'I'm not so sure he's not a part of it,' she murmured. He gaped, unable to hide his shock, but Donovan gripped his upper arm and moved him toward the door. 'Get him out of here.'

He left her behind, mind whirling. Flanking him on either side, the constables walked him down the hall and to the lifts. He felt the eyes of dozens of officers following him; he could almost hear their inner monologues wondering what was going on, and was Greg Lestrade under _arrest_? Being thought a criminal was humiliating, but it didn't chafe at him as badly as he would have imagined. There were larger things at stake.

Outside the building, he met two men in suits—Home Office security agents, apparently. They passed him off as if he were a top secret attaché case, without words, only nods. One of the agents grabbed him at the elbow, turned him toward the street, and said, 'Step this way,' as he guided him into the back seat of a black town car.

The door slammed closed. That's when he saw he wasn't alone in the back seat.

'Detective Inspector Lestrade.'

'Mr Holmes.'

'Did I not say you would need a friend?' Mycroft Holmes raised his eyes to the driver's mirror. 'Let's go.'

**Friday, 21.16 hrs**

'That's enough, back off. I said _back off him_, Lex.' He chuckled darkly to himself as Lex reluctantly complied. 'I should monitor your use of that taser more closely, eh, mate?'

'Ah, come on, Seb. You and Daz have been the ones having all the fun with him. Besides, it's one of the few things that gets our boy moving,' said Lex, setting the taser on the tabletop and rubbing his stained hands on his trouser legs. 'He looks dead, otherwise.'

'He _is_ a bit lethargic as of late, isn't he? Poor pet. And what all do we have on that list of _motivation_?' said Moran.

'Not much. It's mostly all involuntary anymore. We get a reaction with a little zap, with a little rumpy pumpy, and by laying just a finger on the cilice.'

'And on the voluntary side?'

'So far? Only one thing. Offer him some water.'

'Ah. The most basic of human needs. At least his survival instinct hasn't utterly abandoned him.'

Moran crouched down to where John lay on his side and rolled him onto his back. His head rocked back and forth a little before it came to a rest, John's nose to the ceiling and his eyes sealed shut. Now and again, the tiny shudders of convulsing muscles rippled through him. Moran ran the backsides of his fingers down an abused cheek, over the twisted rag that served as a gag and into the bloodstained, dark-blond hairs of his beard. John was unresponsive, but Moran could see the ticking of his pulse in the prominent vein of his forehead. He said his name. Again, not even the twitch of an eyelash. At last, he backhanded him firmly across the face. John's head snapped to the side, nose meeting the floor, and an involuntary grunt sounded in his throat; but other than that, he was little more than a prone mannequin.

'We should take another photograph,' Lex mused. 'Something grotesque. John Watson on all fours wearing a collar and leash, lapping at his water dish. Or on a spit with an apple in his mouth.' He laughed. 'We could blow it up and put it on a hoarding on the M25. Think that would draw Sherlock Holmes out into the open?'

'No,' said Moran. 'It's not about sentiment with Sherlock Holmes. Seeing a man tortured stirs nothing in him, or he would have made himself known days ago. That is, if our friend Lestrade was successful in alerting him. The thing is, Lex, Holmes likes puzzles. High-stakes scavenger hunts. Let's just make sure there's a prize at the end. Keep him alive, will you. Maybe another tin of tomatoes, tonight, before Daz takes him for another ride. Tomatoes and water. Give the good doctor a bit of extra stamina. If we lose him, we don't have another carrot to dangle, what with the old woman disappearing.'

Staring at John's face and his ticking vein, he dragged three fingers through the trenches created by his jutting ribs and sunken stomach, wondering vaguely how much weight the man had dropped. Then he laid a hand flat on the cilice and pressed down, imagining the barbs sinking even deeper into the flesh and nestling themselves there. John's leg jerked and a high whimper burbled up in his throat. His face scrunched with pain and drained white.

'There he is,' said Moran softly.

'Seb.'

He stood as Pete and Daz walked briskly into the kitchen. Pete carried his phone in front of him and was apparently scrolling through data. 'Anything? Are the charges against DI Lestrade sticking?'

'He's the Yard's number one suspect,' said Pete. 'Any suspicion has been successfully deflected. But our contact just phoned. Lestrade's being moved.'

'_Moved? _Where to? What's that mean?'

'Scotland Yard no longer has custody. He's in the hands of MI5 now.'

'_Why?_'

'We're not sure. But sir, Lestrade knows the Yard has been infiltrated.'

Moran stepped forward, a dangerous glint in his eye. 'How?'

'I don't know. There must be a leak.'

'Impossible. Unless one of our men deviated from protocol—'

'Every procedure was followed to the letter. Every act that could possibly be construed as suspicious has been pinned to Lestrade. Each of our players has an airtight background and service record. And channels of communication are impregnable, and coded besides. But Lestrade is convinced. Our bug overheard him telling Sgt Donovan all about it.'

'Do we need to worry about her?'

'She hates Lestrade. And she's none too fond of _that_ down there either.' He nodded to John. 'We've got her where we need her.'

'But Lestrade's with MI5 now.' He bounced the scalpel in his hand, thinking. 'The question is _why_? What's their interest in him?'

'We haven't any eyes or ears at Home Office,' said Lex.

'I _know_ we haven't. And the last thing we need is an MI5 investigation into Scotland Yard. If Lestrade suspects, he'll talk. The question is, how seriously will they take him?'

'It's awfully risky, Seb.'

Moran cast a glance down at John. The man—what was left of him, anyhow—was still again, though his chest rose and fell rapidly, gasping at an enduring pain. 'We'll have to move sooner than we thought. Tonight.'

'The billing cycle doesn't end for another six days,' Pete reminded him. 'We're invisible until then.'

'I'm taking no risks. Someone might just ask the right questions for a change, if they suspect a mole other than Lestrade. And I'm not giving up our prize prematurely. No, by midnight, we're gone. Daz, go on ahead and secure our new location. Pete, get the car. I'm leaving you, Lex, to watch over our little friend down there. Everyone, radio silence until eleven.'

'Do we tell our players in the Yard?'

'No. They've been compromised. Once Lestrade says what he knows, or even simply what he _suspects_—'

'So let's not give him the chance, Seb,' Pete interrupted.

Moran regarded him thoughtfully. 'What do you mean?'

'Lestrade is en route. We can have him taken out before he reaches Home Office.'

'Assassinate him? Then they'll know for sure he wasn't the mole.'

'Not if it looks like an escape attempt gone wrong. Or a suicide.'

**Friday, 21.31 hrs**

Mycroft popped off Lestrade's cuffs as the town car pulled left onto Victoria Street. 'We've been following the trail of a Royal Marine—ex-Marine, I should say—codename LANCE, age thirty-seven. He was one of the most highly skilled of his unit and their deadliest sniper, but he went rogue and deserted while in Afghanistan, five-and-a-half years ago.'

'That's when John was in Afghanistan,' said Lestrade, rubbing his left wrist.

'Quite right. However, he has no overt connection to John Watson, that we've found. But he's a slippery devil. We believe LANCE established ties with James Moriarty before he went rogue and became involved in terrorist cells in the Middle East, involving himself in the planning and execution of a variety of attacks. We've been watching him, but every time we get too close he disappears. He slid out of our radar thirty-three days ago. Last confirmed location was in Croatia, but intelligence implies he moved northward, very rapidly.'

'Forget this codename rubbish. What is his real name?'

'Colonel Sebastian Victor Moran. He's a native Londoner.'

'Right. I need to see your phone,' said Lestrade.

With a raised eyebrow, Mycroft passed it over, and Lestrade quickly punched in a memorised phone number. He put it to his ear and waited. A few seconds passed, then he shook his head angrily. '_Damn._'

'Whom are you calling?'

'A man I have in the field,' he said vaguely. He opened a new text message and started to type.

'What man?' When Lestrade didn't respond, he repeated himself, more insistently. 'I said, what man?'

'The only man I trust. Apart from you. He's looking for John.' He hit the send button, but even when the screen went dark he didn't pass the phone back.

'One of yours?'

'Sort of. Not really.'

'What is _that_ supposed to mean?'

'It's complicated. But I trust him.'

'How do I know _I_ can trust him?'

'Trust _me_. He's our best shot at finding John.' He stared out the window. 'And he should know what kind of danger he's walking into. Damn it, Mycroft, what the hell is going on here? Renegades at Scotland Yard, rogue soldiers, sniper assassins, torturers, sadists, rapists . . .'

'Rapists?'

He slowly let out a long breath. 'There was a video. Sent after the photographs.'

'Oh lord.'

'It's a hurricane of crime and conspiracy and evil, and John is caught in the centre of it all.'

'Because of Sherlock.'

Lestrade raised his hardened eyes to meet Mycroft's. 'Because of Moriarty. A dead man who set wheels in motion that seem impossible to stop. He meant to destroy Sherlock, but it didn't stop with Sherlock, did it? Will it stop with John?'

His fingers pumped against the screen of the mobile, sending another frantic text.

**Friday, 21.38 hrs**

Another text from Lestrade.

He didn't trust it.

He trusted Molly, and had Molly said that Lestrade had been arrested. If that was true, chances were that the Yard had his phone and probably all their communications that Lestrade had been too senseless to wipe clean. They would know that Lestrade was working with someone and would try to lure him out into the open.

So he ignored the first text, the one that claimed he was free and insisted that he call. After the second, he turned off his phone.

He had no confidence in the police. He had missed his opportunity to alert his brother and feared he could afford not a minute's more delay in seeking him out. And he could not involve Molly further, not even to have her make an anonymous call. The chance that it might be traced back to her was too risky. He was alone.

The sun had set nearly three hours ago. Sherlock dropped down from a concrete wall separating a wide expanse of neglected, weed-choked lawn and an untrafficked street in the East End. He crouched in the shadows and observed. Across the yard, an eighth of a mile, no less, stood St Mary's Convent of the Most Precious Blood, empty now ten months and, according to city records, demolished as of fourteen days ago. And yet here it stood, a dark, three-story building with brick smokestacks and a large, mounted cross in the centre of a wide gravel drive. It looked perfectly deserted.

But Sherlock knew, as surely as he had ever known anything, that John was somewhere inside.

He was going in after him. Either he would come out with John, or he wouldn't come out at all.

He had no torch, and no gun. He had no backup, nor hope of any. But he wouldn't wait even a breath longer. Rising from his crouched position by the stone wall, he slowly made his way toward the old convent, soundless, like the ghost that he was.

**Friday, 21.44 hrs**

'No, no, not Home Office. Tell your driver to keep going.'

'Steady on, Davenport,' said Mycroft, leaning forward. Then to Lestrade, 'Why? Where are we going?'

'I don't know yet. Just keep driving.' He punched the _send_ button again but with vain hope.

'The A302,' Mycroft directed.

'Take the Victoria Embankment,' said Lestrade distractedly. 'Just drive.'

The driver took the next left without any sign of uncertainty. Surely, he was used to Mycroft's mysteries.

'Who's been following me?'

'What?' said Lestrade distractedly.

'You said I was being followed.'

A haze of confusion evaporated as Lestrade realised quickly enough that it must have been Sherlock who told him that. But then, Sherlock had thought he was communicating with _him_. So did that mean _he_ was being followed? Instinctively, he craned his neck around to look out the back.

'We're all being followed, I'm sure,' he said drily.

'In Camden, I mean. In the cafe.'

Lestrade sucked on his teeth, considering how he was going to lie his way through this. But no. _No_. It was time to confess the ruse, to bring the few people in the world who gave a damn about John into the same light so they could see one another and work together as one.

'Mr Holmes, do you know the name Arthur Doyle?'

'No. Why? Should I? Is that who has been following me?'

_Not in the way you are thinking_. 'He's my man in the field. He had . . . certain intelligence regarding . . . spies . . . that he conveyed to me and which I passed along to you. But he's flying below the radar and won't be tracked.'

Mycroft snorted. 'If he's that good, you should send him to work for _us_.'

Lestrade smiled ironically. 'He is a bit good, yeah. Without him, I may never have been alerted to the mole in Scotland Yard.'

'A lot of good it does you now, being mistaken for the mole. Scotland Yard is once again in the dark.'

'I have Sgt Donovan on the inside.' He sighed and rubbed a spot between his eyes, as if able to massage away a headache through his skull. 'Not the best hand I've ever been dealt, but folding isn't an option here.' He glared at the phone and felt like punching the window. Why didn't he answer? _Of all the times to ignore me, Sherlock, not now._ 'But I think, Mr Holmes,' he said, taking a steadying breath, 'we may have an ace up our sleeves . . .'

Then he remembered her again: Molly.

And the world exploded.

Amidst the sounds of bursting glass and crunching metal, Lestrade was thrown bodily across the seat, colliding into Mycroft, whose body smashed against the closed door as more glass rained down upon them. For half a breath, the vehicle came to a stop. Lestrade, disoriented but powered by adrenaline, looked up and through the hole that had once been the back window to see a pair of headlights barrelling down on them. He shouted to Mycroft and threw his arms around his own head as Mycroft braced for the second blow.

Street lights swelled and dimmed in Lestrade's vision as he slowly came to on the floor of the town car. The noise of a car horn blared in his ear. Shaking, he moved, and a sharp pain shot through his shoulder.

'Greg. _Greg_.' The sound seemed to be travelling through water. '_Lestrade!_'

Mycroft reached down and grabbed his hand to pull him up. At the wrenching of his arm, Lestrade let out a wail of pain, but Mycroft was relentless.

'Can you walk? _Can you walk?_'

'Yes,' Lestrade gasped. He bent his legs—which seemed to be unhurt, if not a little unsteady—and let himself be pulled onto the seat. He noticed, then, that the driver was slumped over the wheel, his body pressing down the car's horn and blood coursing down his face.

'Then you need to go. _Now_. They'll take you into custody if they find you here, and there won't be anything I can do to stop them this time.'

'I'll be a fugitive,' said Lestrade, blearily. He noticed that Mycroft had a long cut across his forehead; Mycroft wiped at it with the sleeve of his suit coat to clear it from his eyes. Otherwise, he appeared to be all right.

'Take my phone,' Mycroft said, picking it up off the backseat, shaking off the glass, and passing it into his hand. 'And this.' He reached beneath the seat and pulled out a small case made of metal. Unlocking it with a five-digit code, he took out a SIG Sauer P226 pistol.

Lestrade took it, shaking his head. 'They're going to put me away for a very, very long time.'

'Find John,' said Mycroft. Lestrade nodded and stretched out his hand. Mycroft shook it but said imperiously, 'Hurry.'

He kicked his foot into the crunched door to open it. Then, wincing through the pain in his shoulder, he deserted the car and disappeared into a dark alleyway. Soon, he heard sirens.


	20. Chapter 20: Into the Convent

**Chapter 20: Into the Convent of the Most Precious Blood**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 22.03 hrs**

Sherlock Holmes looked down at his feet. Standing in the open doorway, he noted how the light from the moon threw his shadow, long and thin, down the hallway, obscuring his view. So he stepped aside to let the light in.

Dust. And in the dust, traces of shoeprints and a curved line from where this back door to the convent had swept an arc through the dust like a broom. He crouched down, placing a flat hand to the flagged stone floor out of the path of the doorway. He rolled his fingers over his palm, feeling the grit. The dust was heavier here. This doorway had been disturbed recently.

Soundlessly, he shut the door behind himself, as he had found it, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the deepening dark. Only the moonlight through grimy windows of wavy glass provided any light. While he waited, he examined the door. There was a bolt lock on it, which turned fairly loosely for a building so long disused, but it hadn't been set. That meant either that the current occupants felt secure that their hideaway would not be trespassed upon—which would be foolish—or that at least one of them had stepped away and would shortly return. That was far more likely. As such, he prepared himself for the possibility of the enemy at his back, as well as at his front.

His sight being hampered, his other senses became enhanced.

Sound: His own soft footfalls on dust-padded stone, augmented by the corridor's fantastic acoustics; the wind rushing past the windows and whistling through a few cracks; the absence of car's motors or the hum of city street lamps.

Touch: The air in here was five degrees warmer than outside, perhaps 6 or 7 degrees Celsius, barely tolerable without the protection of clothing, and Sherlock knew that John had been stripped. Perhaps the sublevel was warmer, but he didn't have much hope of it.

Smell: Dust, mostly. And . . . chlorine? A cleaner of some sort? Bleach? Yes, that was it. Sodium hypochlorite. Very faint.

He advanced twelve paces and stopped. There was a stairwell to his left, almost hidden in shadow; but his eyes were adjusting to the dark, and he could see, at the curve of the stair, a soft gray light. He quietly placed a foot on the top stair, then the next, slowly descending, trusting his ears, eyes, and nose to alert him to any danger before it could catch him unawares.

When he reached the bottom, he carefully peered around the corner and saw a long corridor, mirroring the one on the ground floor. A light shone at the far end of it, its source around the corner. He could see that other hallways branched away, to the right and to the left, but none were lit. He disregarded them quickly. To find John, he had to follow the light.

Walking down the empty corridor, he had never felt so conspicuous. The walls were a peeling white paint, the floor white tiled, with dust and debris along the edges and corners, and he stood, a tall figure in a dark coat, floating his way from one end to the other, light on the balls of his feet to keep from kicking up a fallen nail or chipped tile and drawing notice with the sound of it. If someone were to come around the corner at any moment, he had nowhere to hide, and it would be senseless to run. He wouldn't run. He would not leave John. Not this time.

He took a left at the end of the corridor, moving closer to the light, whose source was still uncertain. With each step, he could feel his heart pounding more and more soundly in his chest, to the point of aching. It was not a familiar sensation for him. Even in moments of intense activity or heightened stress, when his heart of necessity pumped blood more quickly to mind and body, it was never accompanied by this sort of inexplicable pain. He had felt a twinge of it upon seeing Lestrade, then again at the sight of Molly, and more profoundly at his near run-in with Mycroft. But those pangs was nothing compared to the throbbing he felt now, the wrenching of his heart that he had struggled to keep at bay at the mere _thought_ of seeing John again. Every mention of him since Molly's first text, and then with the photos, with the video, had exacerbated the pain that he refused to give heed to, a pain heated with rage at what was being done to him.

Now, it was catching up to him, and once again, he struggled to push it down, to keep his senses clear and his mind sharp. But he was so close, so _close_, and any minute now, any minute, he knew he would find him, see him, not filtered through a surveillance video or on the small screen of a phone, but in the flesh. He almost couldn't handle imagining it. The workings of the heart debilitated the mind. Over the past three years, he had experienced time and time again how this was true.

On the floor near the base of the door to his right, a splash of brown, just a few inches across, captured his attention, and as he drew nearer, he saw it was actually blood, bearing the print of the edge of a shoe where someone had tread in it. His eyes dragged upward, noticing a small smear of blood on the doorjamb, and the sign on the wall: Laundry. Of course. Sodium tripolyphosphate. Detergent. He looked through the glass of the door, but the room was dark inside. He debated. Continue on toward the light, or investigate the room? But of course he would investigate. He'd never deliberately dismissed evidence in his life. And if it gave him a clearer picture of what had happened, if it pointed more directly to John . . .

He pushed the unlocked door open and slipped soundlessly inside, closing the door behind himself. The little light from the corridor through the glass offered just enough illumination for him to see the bulky, white machines standing in desuetude, counters for folding sheets and clothes, and a half dozen folding chairs, but otherwise the light was insufficient. What he needed was a torch. Begrudgingly, he reached into his pocket for his phone and turned it back on. Six missed text messages. Ignoring them, he turned the sound off and used the screen for a light

He moved into the room. Using his body to block the glow of the phone, he began to look around. What he noticed first was a chair set in a far corner, and as he approached it, he saw a knife on a nearby countertop. Careless. Overconfident. It was a three-finger knife of O1 carbon steel, flecked with blood. Long ginger strands littered the floor, swirling into one another like so many figure _S_s. This is where they had cut her hair. Had John watched it happen? Or had she been alone with them? Inexplicably, he felt the anger begin to stir his blood on behalf of Mary Morstan. That had never happened to him before, caring for someone he had never met. But he did, based solely on the reality that John had loved her.

The light caught the edge of a droplet of red, and he turned to follow a trail to the next corner. There, sticking to the white linoleum with dried blood, was a severed ear. Damn the fingerprints! He didn't care if he smudged the prints of the devil who had done this or left his own behind. He strode back to the knife and changed the phone to his left hand so he could bear the knife with his right. He had visions of slashing it across a man's throat, like they had slashed Mary's. That was justice.

Back into the corridor. He passed another dark room with the door standing ajar. Nudging it open with his foot, he took a quick look inside. Empty, but for food wrappers, a few empty water bottles, and some unopened tins of black beans, tomatoes, and spinach.

The corridor split left and right. To the right, more stairs. To the left, the light. Suddenly, it flickered.

Fluorescent lights.

**Friday, 22.08 hrs**

'Pick up pick up pick up,' Lestrade muttered under his breath, pressing the phone to his ear. He peered quickly around the corner before flattening himself once again to the brick wall. Still not clear. He needed to get out of this alleyway, keep moving. His shoulder was on fire, and the more he stood still the more it seemed to hurt.

'Hello?'

'Molly!' Relief, mixed with euphoria, coursed through him at the sound of her voice, and for a brief moment of respite, he didn't feel his shoulder at all.

'Oh my god. Greg?'

'Yes. Yes, it's me.'

'You—you are okay? I thought you'd been, you know, arrested!' She was hissing into the phone, as though to keep from being overheard. 'I hadn't heard anything in _hours_.'

'Molly, I'm fine, I— Well, let's face it. I'm a fugitive. I escaped custody.'

'_Escaped?_'

'I'll explain everything when I can, but right now, I need your help.'

'Anything.'

'Do you still have that GPS tracker?'

'Yes. Of course. It's here with me now.'

'Thank god. Okay, I need you to turn it on.'

'In a tick.'

He heard her rustling on the other end and imagined that she had set the phone in the crook of her neck to free her hands. That was the sound of skin rubbing against the receiver. He couldn't help but appreciate that she kept him—_it_, he meant—in her ear, in case he might say something, in case she needed to as well, rather than set him—_it_, that was—aside until she was ready for him—_it!_—again.

'Got it. Turning it on now.'

'Good. Now, it won't have much juice left. Let me know when you see the battery life.'

A pause. Then: 'Twelve percent.'

He sighed out his frustration. 'That gives me thirty minutes on the outside. All right, Molly, now does the screen show the menu or a map?'

'Map. It's zoomed in on London.'

'And do you see a little green dot on that map?'

'Yes.'

'Good! Good, that's him. That's Sherlock. Where is he? What part of London?'

'The East End.'

His world stopped spinning out of control—he could almost feel it stabilizing under his feet. He was practically in the East End now. 'Where exactly?'

'He's not on any proper street.'

'What's he close to?'

She described it to him; as she talked, he mapped a pathway in his mind, wishing he knew the back roads and alleys a little better.

'And is he on the move?'

'No. That is, the dot doesn't _seem _to be moving,' she said.

'Okay. Okay, turn it off. Save its battery life. I'll call again when I get closer. Then you can zoom in and guide me to his location within two metres.'

'Greg, the police said John is dead.'

He was about to dart across the street. It was empty now, and he was unlikely to be seen. But her words halted him. 'What?'

'They told Mary's sister that they had found his body. She thought she might find him in the mortuary with Mary.'

'When was this? When did you hear this?'

'This afternoon. About two o'clock. They say his body is almost . . . unrecognisable. Oh god, Greg. Is . . . is it true? Does Sherlock know?'

Two o'clock. That had been shortly after his arrest, about an hour after. But Donovan hadn't said anything to him about having found John. No one had. Were they playing him? No, no, it couldn't be true. Molly had misunderstood, or Mary's sister had.

'It's not true,' he said. 'He's still out there.'

'It's been ten days now,' she said, a tremor in her voice. 'And even Sherlock hasn't found him. You're a detective, Greg, you know about these things. What are the chances—? How likely is it that he's still—?'

'He's still alive.'

'How do you know?'

'Call it a copper's hunch. I just know. Here's what will happen, Molly. You and I are going to find Sherlock. And when we do, Sherlock and I are going to find John. Then it will all be over.'

She didn't reply, but Lestrade felt the weight of that silence. _Over for whom?_

'I need to keep moving,' he said.

'I'll be here when you need me.'

'I know.'

**Friday, 22.12 hrs**

It was a kitchen. No. Not anymore. It had become a slaughterhouse.

Everywhere he looked, he saw blood. He smelled blood. As he advanced slowly into the seemingly empty kitchen, down the row between two long tables, he saw it splashed on the walls, splattered on the sink, smeared on the countertops, streaked on the floor. Red handprints, fingerprints, footprints. Puddles. A severed finger here. Another there. There was far too much shed for just one person. Some of this was Mary's. But how much? Before now, the possibility of John's being dead had never registered so sharply, and he found that he was trembling, but in rage more than in fear. And his synapses were firing rapidly. The anger and horror that had nearly debilitated him before, at Barts, now caused his brainpower to surge, and with a glance he read the story of torture from the last ten days in the evidence around him.

In that far corner were John's shoes and socks. There, his coat. There, his belt. There, a torn and bloody shirt and a vest stained red, and there, trousers and underpants. A red-streaked folding chair was overturned against the wall, bearing scuff marks on the metal legs from where John had been cuffed.

Six empty tins: three of tomatoes, two of black beans, one of peas. A dry dog dish.

An open container of ammonium hydroxide beside a bottle of bleach and several old rags. Its pungent stink filled his nostrils, mixing with the smell of blood, urine, vomit, and semen.

The lead pipe running up the wall he had seen in the photo. The drain in the floor from the video. The orange tiles. This was John's torture chamber.

Where was John?

Then he remembered. Chlorofluorocarbon. He turned to the refrigerator.

He should have noticed right away. The path of blood, the traced and retraced steps leading to and from the large, silver, walk-in refrigerator. Into the box, out of the box. A dozen times, no less. And the door was padlocked. He placed his hand flat on the steel, as though to feel for the warmth of life within it. Was it possible? Could it be that John lay directly on the other side of that locked door? Heart throbbing painfully in his chest, he reached for the lock.

In anger, he yanked the unyielding metal, its loud clatter filling the room. Why did it have to be a _padlock_? Without the right tools—a bolt cutter, or hell, a soda can would work—it was impossible to pry open, and nearly impossible to guess the three-number code. He looked at the dial. The arrow pointed to 21. He tested it for ease of spin. A little stiff. So either final number of the code was 21, 34, or 15, depending on whether the last person to set the lock had spun the dial (it was guesswork, yes, but it was all he had to work from; people tended to spin the dial once after locking, in a clockwise direction, but twice if they were particularly eager to keep their prize locked up; the first spin was usually more powerful than the second, but both spins together, though overshooting it once, rarely brought it fully back to the original number—he never thought this adolescent experiment would come in use, and now that it had he found it almost utterly _useless_). If he had to wager, he'd guess—based on the stiffness of the spin and the prize it was detaining—that the final number was a 15.

But as for the first two numbers, he had no idea, and no way to reason it out.

Then he heard it. The _pat pat pat_ of footsteps drawing near. One set. One man. Average height and weight. Possibly armed. Sherlock abandoned the lock and dropped behind one of the counters where he was shielded from the view of anyone entering the kitchen. The footsteps didn't slow upon entering, but a voice suddenly accompanied them, the nasally voice of a bad tenor, who started singing 'O Danny Boy,' but with altered lyrics:

'Oh Johnny boy!' he sang. 'The blade, the blade is carving  
an I-O-U on, what is this, day ten?'

Sherlock's hand drained bloodless as it clutched his phone. This was Alexander Slough—Sherlock mentally matched the voice to the sound byte. The knife trembled in his other fist.

'You twitch and writhe, and Daz, he gets to tingling.  
It's he must come and fuck you once again.'

He was no longer thinking; reaction required no thought. Before he could stop himself, he was standing at his full height and striding toward the little man whose back was turned to him, who was flipping a taser playfully into the air and catching it in his hand. The man didn't hear him. But in the last moment, he seemed to feel a presence behind him, like a thundercloud darkening the sky, and he began to turn. His eyes widened in alarm just before Sherlock right-hooked him in the side of the head with the fist still clutching the knife—jagged knuckles against skull.

The taser clattered to the tiles, and the man, Slough, yelped in pain and fear. He stumbled back, bent double and holding his face. Without breaking stride, Sherlock continued his advance, scooped down, and snatched up the taser. He pocketed it and grabbed the little man, throwing his left arm around Slough's throat. Slough struggled like a feral cat, kicking at the air, scratching at the fabric of Sherlock's coat, and writhing enough to twist Sherlock's muscles in the effort of detaining him. In the struggle, his phone crashed to the floor, and in the next second Slough's heel had cracked the screen.

Sherlock was seconds away from losing his grip altogether. He tightened his hold on the man's throat, cutting off all air, and pressed the tip of the knife through the fabric of Slough's zipped jacket and into the flesh of his stomach.

'Make a sound,' he hissed into Slough's ear, 'and I'll gut you like the yellow-bellied pig you are.' Face purpling, the man froze in his arms; he was nodding even before Sherlock had finished speaking. Sherlock slackened his grip just enough to keep the man from passing out from lack of air, but he did not release him. Instead, he dragged him to the refrigerator, Slough's feet kicking against the air.

'Open it,' he said. 'And don't pretend you don't know the combination. If that's true, I've no use for you, and we find out if there are any guts in your belly at all.'

With unsteady hands, Slough reached forward and took hold of the padlock. Slowly, he turned the dial clockwise.

'_Faster_,' Sherlock ordered, and he watched the dial still, with its arrow pointing at the first number: 11. Slough spun it anticlockwise, stopping on 31. Then he froze.

'He's going to kill you, Mr Holmes,' he said. His voice was on the edge of a titter. 'That's what all this is for, you know. No matter what happens next, to me or to John, he's going to kill _you_. You're a dead man.'

Sherlock pressed the knife more firmly through Slough's jacket until he was certain he drew blood. Slough jumped. 'Open. The. Lock.'

The final number was 15.

'Now pull.'

He pulled. The lock snapped open.

But Sherlock did not open the door. Instead, he hauled Slough away from the refrigerator, threw him bodily into the countertop, and unsheathed the taser. Fire burned in his eyes as he rammed it into Slough's chest and jolted him with fifty thousand volts. Slough seized, and his body slipped to the floor, unable to do more than grunt while his eyes rolled in his head. And when his body began to still, when he opened his mouth to scream, Sherlock jolted him again, then again, his own teeth grinding to keep himself from shouting out his rage, to stave off the madness that would plant the knife like a stake in Slough's chest. Slough was blubbering on the ground, gasping and twitching, and Sherlock, reached down, fisting his hands into the front of his shirt, and lugged him off the floor. Then he smashed his own forehead against Slough's with such force that for a moment his own vision exploded in stars. Slough's mouth went slack, his eyes rolled into his head, and a line of drool spilled from his mouth.

Sherlock dropped his sorry, senseless body to the cold floor and left him there. He was fast running out of time. Slough wouldn't remain unconscious for long, and every minute that passed was a minute closer to the arrival of a more dangerous and sinister villain. He hurried back to the refrigerator door, threw aside the lock, and pulled the handle. The door swung open with ease.

There, inside that cold box of steel, lay John.

Next moment, Sherlock fell into the darkest, most wretched place he would ever know, for his every observation cried out the god-awful truth: John was dead. Never had he seen a corpse more ravaged, more bloodied, than the one that lay before him. Sherlock's legs weakened and his mind darkened as he collapsed to his knees in the threshold of the freezer. As his heart broke, a blackness began to invade, a feeling more hideous than what he knew could exist. Worse than falling, worse than bleeding. It felt like dying.

But then, the twitch: John's right foot, the bottom of which was slashed thrice to match his left. And he saw, too, the shallow though rapid swelling of lungs shifting the shoulders. A shiver seized John's whole body, then passed, and he stilled once more.

Alive.

A mangled cry caught in his throat, and Sherlock scrambled forward on hands and knees until he knelt beside John's curled body. His brain registered everything his eyes could take in within that tight, dark space, every bruise, every break, every cut, every gash, every burn. He saw the IOUs viciously inscribed into the skin of his back and the metal cilice choking his left thigh. Though John's head was buried in the crook of his elbows, giving Sherlock a devastating view of the bloody wrists lashed with wire, he could still see enough of his face to notice that John's eyes were closed, tightly, and his brow was furrowed as though in consternation, the expression of a man suffering nightmares.

Sherlock quelled his first impulse, to gather John into his arms and hold him close; and his second, to hunt down the man who had done this to him and skin him alive. Instead, he reached out, mindful of John's every wound, and lay a gentle hand over a particularly dark bruise that blackened his arm at the shoulder. Sherlock wondered whether it was broken. Beneath his fingers, John's skin was ice. His whole _body_ was ice. As if in acknowledgement of the cold, another violent shudder ran through him from head to foot, but his eyes remained tightly closed. Sherlock leaned over him and pressed two fingers to his pulse, against the chafed skin just under his chin. Racing. Probably tachycardia. And what with the rapid breathing—tachypnea—he was very likely suffering mild hypothermia.

He didn't have time to warm him properly, not here; he needed to get him out, out of that freezer, that kitchen, that forsaken convent, and quickly. Get him somewhere safe, and then find a phone and call for an ambulance.

But panic was creeping into his reasoning. He needed to move him, but he didn't know where to place a hand without hurting him. For a moment, he was a statue hovering over John, indecisive and afraid. But there was nothing for it. Time was not their friend. So he took hold of John's exposed arm, to roll him onto his back and have better access to the other arm where he could grip and raise him; but when his back pressed against the cold metal floor, John mewled at the pain, another shudder took hold of him—this one born of hurt—and Sherlock let go, his own hands shaking. He noticed, then, the IOU carved into John's left breast, just over the heart, less that twenty-four hours old. Perilously mixed with panic, pity now began to invade his logic: not move him; _help_ him, free him. Sherlock's trembling fingers fumbled at the wires binding John's wrists, desperate to unwind them. But the ends were twisted tightly together and did not yield in the slightest. His knife would be no good against it—he needed cutters. The gag, then.

The knot at the back of John's head was tied too well, but the knife would serve here. Wiping his eyes clear so he could better see, and despite his shaking hands, he managed to slip the knife under the rag that pressed so firmly into John's cheeks. He began to saw the fabric, but when he noticed—to his revulsion—that a new line of red appeared beneath the blade, he abandoned the knife and used his teeth and fingers to rip through the gag. He tasted the ammonia, turned his head, and spit. When it was torn through, however, he discovered that he couldn't cast it aside just yet. John's teeth were locked around it, like a dog's jaws on a rope. Sherlock coaxed it from his mouth gently, massaging the stiffened muscles in John's jaw until they loosened. He then saw, more clearly, the mild chemical burns on John's lips and cheeks, the reddened and swelling skin.

With the gag removed, John suddenly gasped, then choked on the cold air that was surely stinging his throat. He coughed and wheezed, his voice a dark moan, and his lips moved as if he were trying to speak, though his eyes remained tightly, almost determinedly, closed. Sherlock choked back a sob. He couldn't stand it, seeing him this way. He took John's head between both hands now, wanting to soothe the furrowed brow smooth again, to give him water for his parched lips and mouth. But mostly, more than anything, he yearned to see John's eyes, to know that he was still, well, _John_.

He swallowed hard, but when he spoke his voice was little more than a whisper: 'John.'

John's lips stopped moving; his moans died away. But he did not open his eyes.

'John,' he said again, his rumbling voice a quaver.

John's lashes fluttered. Gradually, the chapped eyelids parted. John looked up—their eyes met.

Sherlock read in those lost grey eyes neither shock, nor confusion, nor recognition. It was like they were empty, lightless, deadened. Then John's lids fell again, and he sank back into oblivion.

**Friday, 22.18 hrs**

'I thought you were taking him to Home Office,' said DI O'Higgins. 'Victoria Street is not exactly en route from the Yard, is it, sir?'

Mycroft watched the paramedics roll the gurney bearing Davenport into the ambulance and close the door. He was in critical condition. As for himself, some bruising, a gashed forehead, and possibly a mild concussion; his head had been wrapped, but he had refused further medical treatment while he ensured that Lestrade got as far away as possible.

'Sir, are you listening to me?'

'Sorry, come again?'

'I asked if you had _any_ inclination as to where Lestrade may have gone. Did he say something? Did you see him leave the vehicle? Did anyone assist him?'

'The last thing I remember, DI Lestrade was sitting beside me. Then we were attacked.'

'Attacked, you say?'

'You may have noticed, detective inspector, the state of the vehicle, if not my driver or myself. Yes, attacked.'

'We believe Lestrade orchestrated the hit as a means of esca—'

'Poppycock. We were nearly killed. One doesn't ram two tonnes of metal into the side of a moving vehicle to initiate an _escape_. At the very least, someone wanted Lestrade dead, if not all three of us.'

'Then where is he? How does a man just walk away from an accident like this?'

'You're the detective.'

'You are aware, Mr Holmes, that the SIG regularly stowed in your car is missing from its case?'

Mycroft donned a face of surprise.

'Is that case not regularly locked, sir?'

'I did not know the gun was gone. Nor can I fathom how the case was opened. Only I and two others know the key code.'

'It is indeed curious.'

'Are you accusing me, detective inspector? You are walking on very dangerous ground if you are. In any case, that gun may have been stolen at any time over the last two _weeks_. We don't check up on it regularly.'

'What is Home Office's interest in Greg Lestrade?'

'Our interest in Greg Lestrade is our own. The Yard no longer has custody. We will see to his recovery ourselves. I already have people on it, and it should come as no surprise that _my_ people are far more competent than any of the sorry sods that New Scotland Yard churns out.' _Except_, he thought_, in the case of DI Lestrade_.

**Friday, 22.20 hrs**

'Still not moving.'

'Good. That's good. What's my battery life?'

'Seven percent.'

'All right, save it. Turn it off. I'm still five minutes away. Still no luck getting through?'

'No. He's not answering calls or texts.'

'Damn it, why does he do this? He has no idea the danger he'll be in if he finds John. He doesn't even have a weapon.'

'Do you?'

'I'm armed, yes.'

'Okay. Um. Hurry?'

He smiled in spite of his frustration. 'Five minutes. I'll call again in five minutes.'

**Friday, 22.22 hrs**

Sherlock locked Slough in the freezer, spinning the dial on the padlock hard in his anger. Then he carefully lifted John back into his arms. The seconds were ticking as if speeding them inexorably toward an unforgiving deadline, when someone would come or John's body would fail. They left the kitchen. Every step took them nearer salvation.

He was appalled at how light John's body had become. Judging by the video footage from the jewellery, he estimated that John's weight had been within seven pounds (on the lighter side) of when he had last seen him in the flesh, more than three years ago. But in ten days, he had dropped some two-and-a-half stones! Forget the tinned foods—they had been starving him. His ribs were trenches in his sides, his stomach concave like a soup dish, and his face (where it wasn't swollen) was thin in a way that John Watson's face had never been thin.

Sherlock held him like a child: an arm beneath his knees and the other around his back, holding his torso close. At the first touch, John had protested in the only way he was able—groaning in pain as Sherlock's arm pressed into the wounds in his back; but there was nothing for it, and in any case, John was not conscious, at least not enough to fully register how dearly it hurt. It was little more than a body's involuntary response to pain, like wincing. Now, however, he was silent once again, as though his body now accepted the raw ache as normal.

Initially, his head had fallen back, his neck unable to support the dead weight, which exposed to Sherlock evidence of strangulation: raw skin and dark bruising, as though by a strap, not hands. But he shifted John in his arms, carefully, and now John's head rested forward, upon his shoulder and in the crook of his neck, his cold forehead pressing against Sherlock's hot throat.

He rushed toward the nearest flight of stairs because he believed it deserted. All the while, he focused on the signs of a struggling life: John's breath against his neck, the occasional grunt or whimper, the shivering muscles. He counted the ticks of John's popliteal artery behind the knee. He willed the lungs to keep swelling, the heart to keep beating. _Just a few more minutes. Almost there. Hang on, John. You'll make it. You're going to make it._ He placed a foot on the bottom stair to ascend.

'And so arrives our hero, at the eleventh hour. I knew you wouldn't disappoint. Now drop him, Mr Holmes, turn around, and let me see what it's like to look into the eyes of a dead man.'


	21. Chapter 21: Two Mistakes

**Chapter 21: Two Mistakes**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 22.23 hrs**

Ten seconds. It had come down to a matter of a mere ten seconds. If he had only left Slough on the floor, instead of dragging him into the freezer. If he had only left the gag in place and pulled John out straightaway. If he had only not frozen for three seconds at the door, two seconds at his side, and five seconds more when John's eyes fell closed again. Stupid, _stupid._ He was the worst thing that had ever happened to John Watson.

Once again, he stood frozen, his foot on the bottommost step of the stair. He was sentient, now, of the presence behind him that had soundlessly rounded the corner before Sherlock and John could disappear up the stairs. Instinctively, he pressed John closer to his breast, as though to protect him, but deep in his heart he knew the gesture was futile.

'_Sherlock_.' The voice was dark, though tinged with delight as it said his name in a scolding yet playful manner. From behind, a hand reached into the right pocket of his coat and calmly extracted the taser. 'Naughty naughty. Did your mum teach you nothing about stealing the other children's toys? Now drop the little bugger and turn around.'

He could feel John's quickened breath against his throat, his racing pulse—the sound of the man's voice behind him had incited this unconscious reaction. Knowing what it would cost, Sherlock seemed incapable of obedience.

Then a ring of cold steel—the business end of a pistol—pushed into the back of his neck. 'Playing obstinate probably isn't your best option right now. I said, _drop him_.'

He closed his eyes, steeling himself. Slowly, he lowered himself to a knee and set John's naked body on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He placed him on his side so as not to aggravate the wounds in his back or add further pressure to his wrists. Gently, he removed his hand from under John's head to rest it on the white tiles. Then, before the man could stop him, he whipped off his coat and draped it over John's shivering body. Finally, he placed a hand on John's arm, touching him through the coat, as if the gesture might offer some vain reassurance that everything would be all right.

'Stand up. Hands behind your head. Take two steps backward, then turn around.'

He looked one more time at John's beaten face, the brow that had again furrowed, and lips emitting such shallow breaths. Then he turned around and found himself face to face with a man equal to him in height but broader in the shoulders, with more defined musculature and a considerably uglier face. He bore a prominent mole above his thick left eyebrow and his face was narrow like a hound's. Everything about him—the way his eyes fixed on Sherlock, the way he levelled the Browning L9A1, the way he had shaved that morning—identified him as a military man. His accent pinned him as a Londoner. And the blood-ringed cuffs, the needle pricks along his exposed skin, and his peppermint breath named him a sadist.

His hatred against this man engulfed him. It was so potent it might as well have been poison, and it nearly blinded him. The man's face fogged before him, and he saw himself retrieving the three-finger knife from his right trouser pocket, springing forward with the speed of a cobra, and creating a fountain of blood from the man's neck. He saw himself snapping off the man's fingers, once by one, with wire cutters before stuffing them in his ugly, slanted mouth. But mostly, he saw himself carving deep into his back, long vicious stripes with a rusty blade.

But the fog cleared. In reality, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

'Evening,' said Sherlock coolly. His fingers interlocked behind his head.

'Hello, beautiful,' said the man, a wild light playing behind his bright, blue eyes. 'So pleased to finally meet you.' His eyes raked Sherlock from hair to hiking boot. 'I can see the attraction, now I'm this close to you. You're a real heartbreaker, aren't you, Mr Holmes? But you've only one true love—the game. Have you enjoyed playing this round? Frankly, I'm surprised it took you so long to find me, given your reputation. I sent out the invitations _days_ ago.'

'An address would have been lovely.'

'Not on your best game, or not trying too hard? Is it because _that_'—he gestured to John with his head, but his hands pointing the gun seemed fixed in space—'wasn't so important to you after all?'

'I'm the one you want, isn't that right? You have me now. You can let John go.'

The man laughed humourlessly; his finger on the trigger didn't slacken in the slightest. 'Let him go? Just let him stroll away, whistling a merry tune? You know that's not how this ends. Besides, the little slut doesn't have the strength even to _crawl_ away, like the well-fucked little bitch he is. I've broken him. Look at him, Mr Holmes, I've _broken him_.'

'All of this, just to get to me? You're pathetic.'

'Worked though, didn't it. I mean, here you are. What do you think, my dear? I made you a welcome home gift. Hell, I made you nine of them. But you know the funny thing? I don't think he has any idea what they even mean. Isn't that _funny_? Was daddy just trying to keep little Johnny boy from worrying, or maybe you simply couldn't be bothered explaining it to such a slow-witted _doofus_? But _you_ haven't forgotten, surely. You saw my message in the photographs, is that right? You know what they mean.'

'Of course.'

'I'm afraid I've run out of space on the back, as I'm sure you've also noticed, but there's still plenty of canvas on the front. And I have a few more in me, if you want to keep playing. I'd love to keep playing.'

'You know _that's_ not how this ends. This ends _now_. If you kill John, I'll follow without complaint. But the thing is, I won't _let you_ kill John.'

'You seem to forget: I'm the one holding the gun. And I'm not shy about pulling triggers.'

'Then why haven't you? You could have unloaded all thirteen rounds of your pistol into me in the time we've been chatting, reloaded, and unloaded again.'

'I told you: I still want to play. Don't you know? He's an amazing plaything. You should see it, Mr Holmes, how he swims in the sea of pain. Just when you think he's about to drown in it, he turns his head for air, and gasps. Then he keeps on swimming. I've never seen anyone quite like him. It's beautiful, in a way. It's like he was born for such intense suffering.'

_He's strong_, thought Sherlock. _He's the strongest man I've ever known._

'Don't you want to see how far he can go? How many laps he can manage? You like experiments, after all. I do, too, of a sort. And John Watson has proven a most fascinating specimen. He's accepted that this, _this_, is his life now. I rather think he actually _likes_ it.' The man's grin grew wider at Sherlock's flinch. 'Besides, there are other reasons to keep him alive. Daz hasn't yet grown tired of his nightly trysts with our favourite sex toy. I haven't either, for that matter. Perhaps you would like to watch? _Something_ has to get you off.'

'Daz,' repeated Sherlock, struggling not to rise to the obvious goad. In his mind's eye, he saw himself bashing in the face of the man in the video with a rock until it was no longer a face but a cracked bowl made of skull, brain, and blood. 'The Slash Man, is he? Your hired, homeless rapist? Why yes, I'd love to meet him. I've seen castrated corpses before, but I've never had the pleasure of making the cut myself.'

The man's lip curled in a perverted version of a smile, and his eyes flicked down to John and back again. 'I'll let you practice on the whelp.'

Sherlock snorted. 'Slough? Took care of _him_ already, but thanks for offering him up.'

The man's eyes narrowed as though trying to deduce whether or not Sherlock was lying, but he didn't pursue a line of questioning. Instead, he shifted the conversation to regain the upper hand. 'He really, truly believed it, you know. The sod. The gullible, trusting sod. That you were dead, I mean. You fooled a lot of people, Sherlock Holmes, but not me. Not me.'

'Oh come, don't flatter yourself. You believed me dead, same as the rest of the world.'

'Did not.'

'Did too.'

'Did _not_.'

'Then tell me how I did it.'

The man's lips closed.

'What, don't you know? All right then, tell me this: if you _knew _I had survived the fall, why didn't you shoot? You had a rifle pointed at one of them, am I wrong? You were one of the snipers. I see it in your index finger and the muscle twitch in your left eye. But you never took the shot. Because I jumped. Because you believed I was dead. And why would you doubt it—you had seen it with your own eyes! James Moriarty had succeeded in getting me to commit suicide, just like he told you he would. So you followed orders, packed up your gear, and melded back into anonymity. In fact, you were _so _convinced that you laboured under that delusion for three years. Drifting. Aimless. Until _someone_ told you the truth: Sherlock Holmes is alive.'

The man's eyes were hardened with anger. He spoke through clenched teeth. 'You'll never guess who it was.'

'I know exactly who it was. Irene Adler. Another piece on Moriarty's chessboard. The queen, unless I am mistaken. And I rarely am. But with her, I did make a mistake. In fact, I made two. First, I fell into her trap. In a rare lapse of judgement on my part, I trusted her. Not wholly, of course. I knew she was deceitful and self-interested, something like myself, but I believed we had something of a mutual understanding of one another. So yes, I trusted her just enough to let down my guard, and she played a move against me that I've played against a hundred people, so I should have known better: people don't like telling you things, but they love to contradict you. I wouldn't tell her where I'd been, how I'd survived the fall, anything she asked me about directly. So she pretended she knew something she couldn't possibly know: that there were people here in London who _did_ know about my being alive, who had helped me. She said just one little word, that plural form, and I didn't even blink. I corrected her. Not people. _One_ person. Though I didn't say who. I never thought for a moment that such a simple realignment of her misapprehension could prove so devastating. She presumed, erroneously, that the one person was John.'

'And what was your second mistake?'

'Inciting her petty jealousy. I had beaten her before in our little game of wits, and when I escaped the Libyan prison, declining to serve out the full sentence she had so thoughtfully arranged for me, I beat her again. At least, that's how she saw it. If I had given her what she wanted, that night, she would have been satisfied and her loyalties might have shifted to me. But I gave her nothing. And the woman became vengeful. That was my second mistake: not predicting the devastation a woman's ire could cause. As an act of vengeance, she told you what she had guessed as though it were fact: Sherlock Holmes is alive, and John Watson can tell you where he is.'

'You're only partly right, Mr Holmes. What she _told _me was this: _You want to get to Sherlock? Go through John._ And she was right. Sure, we both figured it was because of what he knew, not what he _was_, but the end result was the same. It's thanks to John that you now stand on my doorstep. But tell me, Mr Holmes. If Ms Adler had guessed _correctly_, if I had squeezed the information from the correct source, whose body would now be lying unconscious at the foot of the stair? Or would they have given you up in that first hour?'

Sherlock said nothing.

'Who did you trust more than John Watson?'

Again, nothing.

'He trusted _you_, you know. Like a child. He was relentless in insisting that you were dead because you, _you_, Sherlock Holmes, would never have lied to him. He thought I was mad, saying you were alive. I'm going to relish the look on his face when he sees you again. And when he sees what I'm going to do to you. Or, maybe, I'll just shoot you now and let your blood wash over him. How poetic it will be when he wakes up in the freezer again, with the body of his former master, realising I was telling the truth all the while. I'll have my vengeance, you'll be dead, and John and I will still get to play. That is, if, after that, he still comes up for air.'

'Listen, if you let John go—'

The man barked out a laugh. 'This isn't a bargaining session!'

'—_let John go_, and you can do whatever you'd like to me. Punish me, torture me, _whatever_ you'd like, and I won't protest. I won't escape. Finish Moriarty's game. Destroy me, bit by bit, until I'm dead or worse. Just . . . don't hurt him anymore. Don't kill him.'

He knew he was pleading, just as well as he knew it would have no effect whatsoever on the viciously detached man before him, but he couldn't stop himself. He was desperate, and he would do anything, _anything_, the most insane or illogical of things, if it meant John would live.

But the man only smirked at his desperation. 'How gracious of you, sending a miserable man back to his miserable life, with the memories of all that has happened to him to torment him for the rest of his miserable existence. And here I thought you cared. No, Mr Holmes, _I_ am more merciful than that. I'll kill him, in good time, when he can't be beaten any lower. That, or watch him choose death on his own. Hell, if he begs me . . . How I'd love to hear him beg me. I haven't heard that sweet voice of his do more than groan, scream, or cry for days now, ever since poor Mary stopped being useful. But I bet I can get him to talk again. He begged for her life. Will he beg for yours? Or will he thank me for killing you, the man who lied to him and betrayed him and as good as delivered him into my hands? I say we find out. I think it's time for him to see you.'

'This isn't about _John_, you imbecile, it's about—'

'Just imagine the look on sweet Johnny boy's face when he sees you, then imagine how that expression will contort when he sees your head explode. You'll have to imagine it, see, because you'll be too dead to see it properly. There now. Shall we wake him?'

'Please—'

'Shut up and turn around. _Turn around_. Good. Now on your knees, facing him. Oh, this will be fun. I want him to see you when he opens his eyes. There you go, love. Keep those pretty hands behind your head, and don't move a muscle or I'll blow a hole right between those pretty blue eyes.' With his gun fixed on Sherlock's head, the man circled around to stand at John's feet, careful not to block Sherlock's view. Then he placed a foot on the coat covering John's thigh and pressed down on the cilice.

John's whole body jerked, his head snapped back, and his face screwed up in pain, but his eyes remained steadfastly sealed shut. Sherlock winced in empathetic unison and balled his fists in his hair.

'Oi. Johnny boy. Wakey wakey. I brought you a new present.' He grinned at Sherlock, keeping the barrel trained on his forehead.

Sherlock saw the man's arm tighten and his forefinger flex a fraction of an inch. This was no bluff. He was mere seconds away from firing. It would happen the moment John opened his eyes. Silently, he willed John to remain unconscious. _Don't open your eyes, John. Don't look at me. Stay far, far away._

'Open your eyes, John,' said the man, 'and I'll give you something to drink.'

John's eyelashes fluttered.

Then suddenly, a blast. It came from above, the sound ricocheting down the stairwell and setting the tiles ringing. Both men looked up in surprise, as the noise that rent the air was followed by a distant man's incomprehensible shout and two more blasts. Gunshots.

Sherlock recovered first. He sprang to his feet and grabbed hold of the man's wrists, twisting hard to wrest the gun from his grip. But the man was strong and did not yield his weapon. With both sets of hands locked around the gun, the man swung Sherlock around until his body slammed into the wall. Sherlock's grip loosened and one hand slipped; simultaneously, the man released one of his own, and next second had fisted it and smashed it into the side of Sherlock's head. Bent nearly double and bracing for the next blow, Sherlock slipped a hand inside his right trouser pocket and extracted the knife, gripping it solidly, just as the man bashed his head again, this time into the wall. Sherlock crashed to a knee; but he used the force of his landing to drive the knife down the man's leg, knee to ankle.

Any ordinary man would cry out and retreat from the source of the pain. But this man was a trained fighter. With his uninjured leg, he kicked Sherlock in the face. For a fraction of a second, his world went dark. When it cleared again, he was on his back, and the man was on top of him, straddling him about the waist. One large hand strangled his throat, while the other pointed the gun between his eyes. But Sherlock realised that he still gripped the knife. Impulsively, he swiped it across the man's face.

The cut was long and deep, gashing both cheeks and tearing across the bridge of his nose. Blood gushed and rained down on Sherlock from above. This time, the man did scream, a primal, guttural cry, and he grabbed his face and jumped to his feet, staggering backward. Sherlock, too, scrambled to find his feet. Just as he did, he saw the man turn from him, a mad glint in his eyes, and he pointed the gun at John's head. Sherlock lunged forward with a shout, seized the man by the shoulder, and yanked.

The gun exploded. A spout of blood erupted through the punctured coat.

'John!' Sherlock cried.

John moaned in severe agony, but he did not come fully conscious. A small pool of blood leaked out from under the coat and spread wider.

Distracted by the heart-wrenching sound of his friend in anguish, Sherlock didn't brace for the next blow. The butt of the gun cracked against his skull. Hot blood poured down the side of his face. He stumbled, his shoulder crashing into the opposite wall, and he swiped the knife again, this time through nothing but air. Nevertheless, the man's attention was now divided between him and John.

Sherlock had to ensnare it.

'All this,' he said, panting, 'in the name of a man who didn't give a damn about _you_?'

Above the gruesome gash dividing his face, the man's eyes flashed. 'Fuck you. I was his number one. His most trusted servant. He told me everything. _Everything_. About you. About _John_. How to destroy you both.'

Sherlock was backing away, slowly, down the corridor. Though his eyes never broke contact with the man's, he saw in his periphery that the man's foot edged forward, contemplating pursuit. _That's right, follow me, follow me. _To the left of his vision, John was still again. Dead? No. He heard the soft, deep moan. _Don't die, John. Oh god, please don't die. _

'He was insane. Why do you think he put a gun in his own mouth?'

The man flinched.

'You act like that's a surprise. How do you _think_ it is he died?'

'_You _killed him.'

'Please. He killed himself.' He was nearing the end of the corridor now. He knew there was another set of stairs not halfway down the next hallway. He wanted to look at John, just one more time, but he didn't dare drop his eyes from the gunman's and release the lure.

'You are a _liar!_'

'He put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Didn't even blink. He was so bored—with life, with me, with _you_—that _pop!_ Didn't even care.'

'You—'

'Skull blown out the back.'

'—fucking—'

'Eyes still bulging.'

'_—liar!_'

'He was so determined to beat me that he considered his own life of little consequence, if it meant that his death would seal the deal. I would have no choice but to jump, and then we'd both be dead. But look at me. _My _heart still beats. Do you know what that means? _I win_.'

The man steadied the gun to take fire just as Sherlock reached the end of the wall. It was now or not at all. He would run. He would give chase and let the man hunt him, drawing him away from John just long enough for the man upstairs to reach him. His death would mean something this time. He dashed around the corner just as the gun went off and the rock in the wall flew like shrapnel. Sherlock ran. Behind him, he heard a cry of rage and the sound of pounding feet. Moriarty's man was in pursuit. _I'm so sorry, John_, he thought, as he left him behind once more.


	22. Chapter 22: Good on His Word

**Chapter 22: Good on His Word**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 22.25 hrs**

Lestrade's heart thumped soundly with a mixture of exertion and adrenaline as he slowed to a jog, clutching a stitch in his side. Blisters were forming beneath the leather of his wing tips—a poor choice that morning, evidently—and he perspired heavily in the cold night air. His coat felt heavy, too confining. The jagged pain in his shoulder had spread up his neck and down his back, his muscles swelling and throbbing each time his feet pounded the pavement, but he kept moving, afraid of what any delay might cost.

When he reached the designated corner, however, he finally came to a stop. Eyes scanning left, right, near, and far, he determined that he was not being pursued nor in any immediate danger. Then he pulled out Mycroft's mobile.

'I'm on the corner, facing north,' he said, panting into the phone.

'Then he should be to your right,' Molly returned.

Lestrade turned east and looked across the empty street to where a long stone wall ringed some darkened property. Halfway up the street stood a wrought iron gate. When he reached it, he discovered it was chained and locked. To the left of the gate, he saw a sign.

'St Mary's Convent of the Most Precious Blood,' he read aloud.

Angling his head, he peered through the close-set bars and saw a solitary building standing off in the distance, beyond a stretch of unkempt lawn. A large cross stood tall on a white gravel drive. There were no lights, no vehicles, nothing moving. It appeared to be perfectly abandoned.

'He did it,' he said. 'This is it, he found it.'

'Then—?'

'He's inside. They're both inside.' He jostled the gate but knew the chains would never give way. So he cast his eyes up to the top of the wall, looking for a spot to mount. 'Molly. You said the little green dot hasn't moved?'

'Not a jot.'

Not a jot in the last ten minutes? That was a bad sign. It meant Sherlock was stuck, detained, captured . . . or worse. Instinctively, he pulled the SIG from the back of his trousers and quadruple-checked the magazine. 'Zoom in, as close as you can get. You'll be able to see if he's moving at all. Pacing or something. How are we for power?'

'Four percent. I'm zooming. It's taking a moment.' A pause. 'Right. The dot is perfectly still, Greg.'

He wiped his glistening brow with the back of his hand. 'I'm going in. Listen, Molly. Don't call. I don't know what I'll find in there, but I will have to keep as silent as I can. If . . . if you don't hear from me in the next ten minutes—'

'I'll phone the police.' A slight tremor had disrupted her voice.

'Not the police. Sgt Donovan directly. Sgt Sally Donovan.' He recited the number; he was getting rather good at memorising numbers. 'Tell her where I've gone. She'll know what to do.'

'Okay.'

'And Molly?'

'Yes?'

'You've been . . . brilliant. Absolutely wonderful.'

There was momentary silence on the other end. Then, 'Everything will be okay. For everyone. I'll see you soon. Won't I, Greg?'

'Not long now. I promise.'

He pocketed the mobile and replaced the gun. Then, taking a deep, anticipatory breath, he hoisted himself up onto the wall. The effort tore at his shoulder, like a hot shredder sinking into his flesh, but he gritted his teeth and powered through. _Not as young as I once was_, he thought as he gracelessly dropped down on the other side, nearly twisting an ankle. He leaned one moment against the wall, just to breathe. Then, gun once again in hand, crouching low, and keeping to the shadows cast by the moon, he made his way across the yard and to the front door. It was locked. He stood there, debating. Circle around in the hope of finding a less secure entrance? Or risk the noise of breaking through the front? He peered through a side window into the convent and saw a dark, empty atrium with doors leading away to either side.

He was on the verge of leaving the front door to try another around the side or back when he realised that the window through which he looked was cracked. With a pre-emptive wince, he slammed the SIG against the glass and listened to it shatter, to the shards tinkling onto the ground inside and out. Then he paused, holding his breath, and waited for the repercussions. Silence.

Putting a hand through the broken glass, he groped for the lock on the door. Only his left arm could reach, the arm with the busted shoulder, and gripping the lock proved almost too much for the swollen muscles to handle. The shards of glass in the frame sliced steadily through his coat sleeve, his shirt sleeve, and down to the skins as he struggled to turn the bolt. Grunting and grinding his teeth, he at last succeeded in twisting hard the lock. With a firm yank, the door broke free of the doorjamb, and he slipped quietly inside. He tapped his fingers against the new wound in his arm. It stung, but he counted it as nothing.

He passed through the atrium and took the left door into a passageway, through a series of small rooms with empty shelves and dusty couches, and finally to a wide corridor in the centre of the convent, which seemed to lead to the back of the building where he imagined the chapel lay. Other rooms branched left and right. Gun steady in his right hand, he advanced down the corridor, eyes wide and roaming. The building was large—three stories from what he could tell from the outside. So when he came to the stairwell, he hesitated. Up or down? Then he remembered: _most certainly a sublevel, somewhere no one would be able to hear screaming._ Sherlock believed John was underground, and so Lestrade believed it too. Lord help him, he believed Sherlock's every inclination. He always had. Nothing had changed in that regard. He took one step down.

'Car's out back, Seb.'

Lestrade froze at the sudden sound of a man's voice travelling down the corridor, so blasé, unhurried. Then he noticed the sound of footsteps drawing closer. The man was speaking to _him_, and, in the dark, mistaking him for someone else.

'We're ready to move him to the new location. As for Lestrade, something went wrong. The crash was executed perfectly, but he's still alive. Fled the scene, somehow, and now he's—'

The moment to fly down the stairwell had long passed. Lestrade looked over his shoulder, and his face caught the full moonlight shining through a window. The figure of a man, backlit by the moon, halted abruptly upon seeing him. The two men faced each other, unmoving, not knowing what would happen next. But the moment didn't last. The dark silhouette sprang into action, Lestrade's copper sense picked up on the aggression, and he countered. He spun to face the man and aimed the gun. 'Police! On the ground! Hands where I can see them!'

But the shadow did not falter in the slightest. The man whipped out a weapon from around his back and, without hesitation, fired. Lestrade jerked to his left, but not quickly enough. The bullet punched through his side, just above the belt, and into the wall behind him. He shouted in pain, but more in _shock _at the pain, and discharged his weapon. His first shot missed, but the second struck true. The figure collapsed in a heap in the moonlit corridor.

Lestrade fell against the wall, a fist buried in his shirt and feeling the hot blood squeeze out between his fingers. _Damn it, damn it! _Was it bad? It felt bad. _Idiot!_ he thought. What use was he to anyone? First arrested, then ambushed, now shot.

The shock of being shot had flooded his system with adrenaline. Rather than crumple to the floor, Lestrade pushed himself off the wall. One fist pressing into his side, he held the SIG out in front of himself, finger on the trigger, and warily approached the prostrate body of the man whom he had shot. The figure was squirming on the ground, legs bending and straightening, arms drawn in close, head rolling. He came within inches, about to roll the man over with his foot to put him on his back when he heard a blast from somewhere down below. His head whipped back to the stairwell, but as he turned to move toward it, a hand caught the hem of his trouser leg. Already weakened, Lestrade tripped and fell.

On the ground, he kicked out, separating himself from the latching hand. He took aim again even as he found his feet, but the man was dying, hand outstretched in a futile effort to retrieve his dropped pistol. Lestrade kicked the man's gun away and flipped the man over onto his back with a well-placed kick underneather the ribs. In the moonlight, he recognised the face as belonging to Peter Caldwell. Again, Sherlock had been right.

The bullet had burrowed itself into the centre of his chest. A mortal wound.

'How many of you?' said Lestrade, taking aim at his head.

The man, Caldwell, didn't answer. His eyes rolled in his head and his mouth twisted in pain.

'Answer me!' He fisted his hand into the man's shirt and raised his upper body from the ground. 'How many of you are involved?'

Slowly, Caldwell's eyes came into focus. He looked straight into Lestrade's, and smiled. 'More than you can possible imagine,' he rasped.

'_How many?_'

Caldwell's head lolled to the side.

'Who is your man at Scotland Yard?'

He began to wheeze. A small bubble of blood inflated between his lips. Lestrade shook him, trying to refocus his attention. 'Is it Stubbins?' Caldwell's body shuddered, and the bubble burst. 'O'Higgins? Answer me, damn you!'

But Peter Caldwell was dead.

Another shot rang from downstairs.

Sherlock.

_John._

Lestrade dropped his hand from the dead man's shirt. He grabbed Caldwell's gun from the floor and put it in the back of his trousers. His fingers curled once again around the SIG as he returned to the stairwell, no longer with caution and paying no heed to the fire in his side or shoulder. His feet pounded down the spiral stairs, ready to fire the moment he saw another of John's captors.

Instead, he saw John.

'Jesus, no.'

John lay at the foot of the stair, half covered in the coat Sherlock had taken from Lestrade's closets, the same coat into which he had dropped the GPS tracker. His heart sank. So he was making good on his word: find John, and disappear. _Damn you, Sherlock_, he thought. _You selfish prick! How could you leave him here, wounded, alone, unconscious . . . ?_

Unconscious? Or . . . dead?

He stepped out of the stairwell and checked the corridor left and right with both sight and gun. It was clear. Then he turned his attention to the body at his feet. 'Oh John, don't be dead. Jesus, don't be dead.' Dropping to a knee, he pressed a hand to John's pulse and held his breath, waiting for the beat. After what felt like an eternity, it came, weakly. 'Jesus, jesus.'

Setting the gun at his side, he scrambled for his phone.

'Donovan.'

'Sally, I need a homicide team and a medical unit dispatched _at once_ to St Mary's Convent of the Most Precious Blood in the East End.'

'Is this'—her voice halted and he imagined that she was quickly distancing herself from eavesdroppers; when she spoke again, it was in a hiss—'Lestrade, is this _you?_'

'I found him, Sally, and he's dying. A team and a medical unit, _right away_. Are you_ getting _this?'

'Most Precious Blood, East Side, I got it.'

Lestrade pulled back the coat to see the fuller extent of damage. That's when he saw the bullet wound in John's left leg and the blood flowing like a river.

'A medic, _now!_'

'On it!' she shouted into the phone, and the line went dead.

He dropped the phone and pressed his hands into gunshot wound to staunch the flow of blood, never minding his own injury, which seemed of little consequence now. John gasped and cried, though his eyes remained sealed.

'It's okay, John. I've got you. It's all okay now.'

'Sher... Sher...' John whimpered between sobs.

'It's over, mate. We found you, we found you. You're going to be okay.'

But he didn't know if it was true. He waited there, on the floor with a dying John Watson, as the agonising minutes dragged by, futilely trying to dam the blood flow and ceaselessly intoning, 'It's okay, John. It's okay. It's okay.'


	23. Chapter 23: Meet Arthur Doyle

**Chapter 23: Mycroft Holmes, Meet Arthur Doyle**

**DAY 10**

**Friday, 23.02 hrs**

In a strange turn of fortune, getting shot was perhaps the luckiest bad thing that could have happened to Greg Lestrade that night. It forestalled his immediate arrest.

'Not really a proper shot,' said the medic as he saw to the gunshot wound in his right side. His left arm rested in a sling. 'Didn't strike anything vital. It's more of a deep graze, and as clean a wound as you could hope for. Another ambulance is on its way to take you to hospital to get it properly stitched up.'

Lestrade wasn't really listening. He was watching them load an unconscious Alexander Slough into the second ambulance. The first had already gone. It was far away, but Lestrade thought he could still hear the sirens in his head, and the words of one ambulance technician to another, spoken in an undertone though not softly enough: _This one's not going to make it_.

Ten minutes ago, he had been watching them fit a tourniquet to John's leg, an urgent procedure hampered by the cilice, which, ultimately, they decided to leave on. It would take the more dexterous hands of a surgeon or the gentle fingers of a nurse to remove it with minimal damage, barb by barb, although the flesh already appeared ravaged. They were also flustered by the wire joining John's wrists. It had burrowed deep into the skin of both wrists, so deep that some of the skin had scabbed over the wire where it was trying to grow back together. Attempting to remove it, they determined, might actually cause greater blood loss. Best to leave it to the emergency department.

As they worked, John swam in and out of consciousness, though never surfacing to lucidity. His eyes never opened, but he moaned and wept, legs writhing and head twisting away from where one of the technicians tried to hold an oxygen mask over his mouth. Lestrade stood mute and helpless to the side, his hands dripping with John's blood, until Sgt Donovan noticed that the blood on his shirt was his own. She pulled him away from the scene and saw that he received proper medical attention.

'I want to go with him,' he had said. A medic was peeling back his shirt. When a finger touched the wound in his side, he sucked air through his teeth and winced, but his eyes were riveted on where they were rolling John into the back of the ambulance on a gurney.

'Not happening,' said Donovan at his side. 'You're injured. You need looking after.'

He shot her a hard look.

'He really needs to get to hospital' said the medic.

Donovan ignored him. 'I'm sending Dryers in the ambulance with him,' she said, 'and two police cars behind.' She leaned forward in earnest. 'I trust Dryers.'

So she was sensitive to his paranoia about spies in the Yard after all. Still, he was little placated. He hadn't gone through all that hell to leave John's side now, especially not when the threat had not fully subsided. 'I should be there. With him. Sally—'

'Shut up, Greg, I'm doing you a favour.'

'What's that?'

She turned to face him directly. Keeping her voice low, she said, 'As long as you're here, with me, O'Higgins can't touch you. Got it? You show up at Barts, patient or not, he'll have you re-arrested. I'm buying you time.'

'Are you telling me to run?'

'I'm telling you I have people'—her eyes flicked to the medic, who pretended to not care a lick about the conversation—'_on it_. I need thirty more minutes, and I'll have those sons of bitches in cuffs.'

He felt his pulse quicken. 'Then it's more than just Stubbins.'

She nodded grimly. 'We're just getting started.'

At that moment, her phone went off, and she excused herself to take the call. Next second, the ambulance rolled away, lights flashing and sirens wailing, speeding John away and leaving Lestrade alone, to watch the men and women of Scotland Yard—all handpicked by Sgt Donovan—pass in and out of the convent to take photographs and collect evidence, to sweep the building and grounds for hidden perps. As they entered, he saw, they did so as a matter of course, another night on the job. They exited, however, wan and shaken. Below, they were discovering overwhelming evidence of torture and murder.

Now, as the medic finished with him and was called away to examine the body lying dead in the corridor within the convent, Lestrade stood gingerly, against medical recommendation, and started toward the ambulance, where they were just closing the doors behind Slough. He felt the painful tug in his busted shoulder as gravity dragged his arm downward, and the strain in his side against the bandaging. As he walked, his eyes scanned the shadows of the grounds, hoping to see a familiar figure watching him. But he saw no one. He reached the ambulance before the driver got behind the wheel.

'Not to Barts,' he said. They had taken John to Barts. 'Anywhere but.'

The driver nodded in agreement.

'We'll be sending officers along shortly. That man is under arrest.'

'You're not on duty, you know.'

He turned and saw that Donovan had returned from her phone call. But where he expected to see a look of frowning disapproval, he found her smiling impishly. He never would have thought her capable of impishness.

'What?' he asked.

'We got the bastards.'

As it happened, Sally Donovan had not been idle in her quest for justice. After her initial interrogation of Lestrade, she left the room acutely disturbed and began to think of all he had said about whispers and nudges. It was bollocks, utter madness! But she believed him. And not only for what he had said in the interrogation room, but also because it didn't make _sense_, not in her head or in her gut, for Lestrade to be a traitor, especially not one who would take part in the kidnapping and torture of a former acquaintance, whom he had seemed to like well enough, back then.

And she remembered Stubbins, Everett Stubbins, one of O'Higgins' men who, handing her a coffee shortly after twelve o'clock on Thursday, had said, 'Your boss seems to be acting a bit tetchy lately, eh? A bit, I don't know, nervous about something.' She had thought, in that moment, _What do you know about him acting tetchy? You don't work with the guy. For all you know, this is typical Lestrade behaviour._ It wasn't, and that's what irked her so much. Unfortunately, she hadn't given much thought to that thought. Not until Lestrade suggested someone had been encouraging the seed of her suspicion to sprout.

With such smooth, insignificant words. Bastard.

In O'Higgins' office, contrary to her solid character, she lied her fool head off when asked what Lestrade had said to her. She claimed he had only gone on and on expressing concern for John Watson and saying how, by visiting Mary Morstan, he had been trying to help. While she talked, she was scarcely conscious of her own words. Her mind was spinning with Lestrade's actual claims and with what she now suddenly suspected, and by the time she left the office, she had designed to confront Stubbins in the same sly, underhanded manner in which he had misled her:

'Ug! This case is making me mental!' she said, pouring coffee. She nodded to an empty mug. 'You want some?'

Stubbins looked up briefly from his book, a dog-eared crime thriller. He grinned winningly. 'Thank you, Sally. That would be lovely.'

She poured a second cup. Indicating the book, she said, 'What, you don't get enough of that around here?'

'Nah, these are better. Justice served and happy endings and all.' He grinned cheekily and took the cup. 'Don't worry, Donovan. We'll solve it before too long. Lestrade won't last long in the hot seat. He'll crack.'

'Hm. Thing is,' she brooded, 'I should have seen this coming. I should have noticed something was off. You were right. He'd been acting wonky for days.'

'Not much of a poker face, that one.'

'I mean, his head wasn't even in the Vander Maten case. It wasn't like him. Not at all.'

'That one was a puzzle, wasn't it?' said Stubbins, taking a sudden interest and closing his book.

'Was? It's still not solved. Sullivan's heading the investigation, and he's no nearer the truth than we were a week ago.'

'Still no confession from the wife?'

'She's sticking to her alibi, and the son was out of the country, and the biology teacher . . . Well, the list of suspects goes on. All the evidence is circumstantial at best.'

He tsked sympathetically. 'It's a shame, the circumstantial thing. Even when you _know_ someone is guilty, if you can't prove it . . . well, then, you're nobbled. No winning that race. An argument, an unused train ticket, a torn v-neck jumper on the bed.' He shrugged. 'It's just not enough.'

Donovan's eyes flashed. _The evidence list does not note the jumper's neckline. Or where it was found._ It was not the direction she expected the conversation to take, but Stubbins' slip would prove . . . useful. Forcing a casual note to her tone, she said, 'Keeping tabs on the Vander Maten case, are you?'

'Just a passing interest. Anderson was carrying on.'

_Anderson wasn't on the case. Anderson has never even seen the jumper._

Her suspicions were pricked, but she did not see the connection between the twelve-days-old Vander Maten murder case and the John Watson ten-days-old kidnapping. Nevertheless, she had a hunch that, if she would only dig deeper, she would find one.

As the minutes and hours unfolded under her prodding fingers, new and subtle oddities escalated her suspicions. First she looked into Stubbins' record, but it was impeccable, he having come to the Yard nearly four years ago as a decorated soldier with upstanding character. So she began to retrace his activities as they related to the John Watson case. Again, there didn't seem to be anything to impugn him. But then she remembered that she had sent Stubbins with Lestrade to confiscate his work laptop from his home and return it to the Yard for analysis. She had been told—and wasn't it Stubbins himself who had told her?—that technology forensics had uncovered evidence that Lestrade's computer had been used to alter the timestamps on the receipts from the jewellers and create a false timeline. She went herself to speak with tech forensics, only to learn that though the computer had been used to hack the Watson case files (as Lestrade had admitted to doing), it was clear that it had not been used to alter the timestamps. So Stubbins had lied. But what did that _prove_?

Further probing drew in new players. In addition to the highly questionable Everett Stubbins, Rupert Gibson, also of O'Higgins' team, was quickly added to her growing list of suspicious characters when neighbourhood watch surveillance video captured his patrol vehicle on Porter's Avenue on the night of Mary Morstan's disappearance, just twenty-two minutes before the 999 call was placed. Gibson's logs, however, placed him more than ten miles away at that same time. But again, what did that prove? It was circumstantial at best.

And then something greater came to light: Two other constables, Burch and Moore, had reportedly, according to Samantha Hillock, mentioned the presumed death of John Watson. A severely abused body with a bashed-in face had washed up on the banks of the Thames. The body was sent for DNA identification, not to Barts, but to a lesser-known and seldom-used lab in South London on the pretext that the lab at Barts was backed up. A quick phone call to Barts clarified for Donovan that this was not true. More troubling, however, was that the body had been sighted in the hour _after _Mrs Hillock's conversation with the two constables. Then it happened: The results came back, rather too swiftly in her experience: positive identification for John Watson. Fifteen minutes later, Greg Lestrade phoned from the convent in a panic.

Donovan pounced. Burch squealed. He named names. Lestrade's wasn't among them.

As she hurried to the convent with the team she put together himself, she kept the phone in her ear to be apprised of the continued and now rapid investigation into the threat of multiple double agents. Moore was discovered in possession of a folded five-by-seven photograph of John Watson and Mary Morstan at a pub; in the background, among other nameless figures and slightly out of focus, Everett Stubbins and another man were watching John from the bar. Gibson's patrol vehicle was searched, and in the trunk, long ginger hairs.

Corroborating evidence.

At around midnight, Friday night, while John Watson was still in surgery, Greg Lestrade was fully exonerated of the charges brought against him and cleared of all suspicions. He wasted no time throwing himself back to work and took full responsibility for John Watson's security detail. Eight officers of New Scotland Yard were arrested, Caldwell was dead, and Slough wasn't talking, but he knew that there were others, _at least_ two others, involved in John's kidnapping and torture who had not been identified, let alone apprehended. And if Sherlock was right—and when was he not?—and if they were in some way part of Moriarty's network, then there were surely many more. John, witness and survivor, was still a target. So Lestrade stationed four of his most trustworthy constables, and Sgt Donovan besides, at St Bartholomew's Hospital to secure the surgery. Meanwhile, Lestrade, after seeing a doctor about his injury and being cleared to leave the surgery, reported to the chief superintendent, who was livid about the treachery within his own jurisdiction. Nevertheless, he begrudgingly apologised to Lestrade, and even commended him for his stalwart devotion to justice.

'In future, though,' said Pitts, as Lestrade rose tenderly from the chair and cradled his slung arm, 'you will conduct yourself more in line with the outlined procedures. You'll confer with your higher-ups. Won't you, detective inspector?'

'Sir,' said Lestrade noncommittally.

En route to Barts at last, his mobile, which had been returned to him, went off. It was Donovan.

'He's just come out of surgery, sir,' she said.

'What's his condition?'

'Still critical. They've moved him to intensive care and are watching him closely.'

'Is he still—?'

'Unconscious. They don't expect . . . That is, it may be a while before . . .' She sidestepped altogether. 'Our security detail is strong here, sir. Maybe you should go home for the night and rest.'

'No, I'm coming to see him.'

'Sir, you were _shot_ just a few hours ago.'

'I'll be relieving you momentarily, sergeant. Thank you.' And he hung up.

**Saturday, 03.23 hrs**

He parked the car and turned off the engine. But he didn't get out. Not yet. Instead, he sat quietly. John wasn't awake yet, after all, and for the first time in a full week, since he had learned of John's kidnapping, he did not feel spurred to action or crippled by fear. John was safe. Sherlock had found him.

And then he had disappeared. Was that it, then? Would he simply declare the case solved and return to Cairo or wherever the hell he'd choose live out the rest of his life as a dead man? Why would he choose that? And what about John? What was Lestrade to tell him? Maybe Molly could keep Sherlock's secret, but he didn't know if _he _could. Frankly, he didn't want to. He thought about the last time he had actually seen him, at Barts, after receiving the video message Thursday morning. Sherlock had bemoaned the fact that he hadn't made good on that fall; he had sadly asserted that John would hate him for all that had happened to him; he had once again expressed a willingness to die for his friend. It was not the final memory he wished to have of Sherlock Holmes.

Lestrade pulled out his phone, then stopped, remembering that they had found a smashed phone at the crime scene. He hadn't said anything, but he knew to whom it had belonged. Sadly, he put his phone away, clicked the release button his seatbelt, and eased himself out of the car.

He was nearing the front doors, fishing around in his pocket for his ID with his one good arm, when he felt eyes on the back of his neck. He slowed, turned, and across the street, he saw a man step back into the shadows, but he didn't flee. No, the figure stood still, watching him. Waiting. Lestrade's feet halted beneath him. Then he moved, crossing the street as quickly as he could without causing himself greater pain than he already felt. He kept his eyes fixed on the man, expecting him to vanish if he so much as blinked; but the man made no move to run or to hide.

'I thought,' said Lestrade, coming to stand beside him in the shadow of the building, 'that you'd be long gone by now.'

At first, Sherlock said nothing, but his eyes grazed Lestrade from head to foot. Lestrade stared at him too. He wore a tweed flat cap, underneath which he had stuffed a rolled up sock, evidently as a compress against an open wound; it was stained blood red. The shirt he wore was not one of Lestrade's but a thick poly-cotton blend with fraying cuffs and collar. He wore no coat. He also wore no shoes.

'You're doing remarkably well, Lestrade,' said Sherlock, 'for a man who was so recently shot.'

Lestrade laughed shortly. 'The arm in the sling didn't throw you a bit, did it? Did you work it out by the way I'm not standing quite upright and how I wince with every step?'

'How unimaginative of you.' He didn't crack a smile. As he spoke, his breath rose as fog, but he seemed otherwise impervious to the cold, despite his lack of coat. 'I heard the gunshots. In the convent. And the fabric of your shirt doesn't hang quite right because you're wrapped in bandages underneath. And yes, you do wince with every step. But one can also attribute that to your left shoulder.'

'Fractured clavicle. Minor fracture, but hurts like hell. It was worth the bullet wound, though, and a busted shoulder, finding him.'

'Quite right.'

Lestrade regarded him with a bit of concern. Beside the blood-soaked sock beneath the flat cap and the traces of blood that had obviously been wiped from his face but not properly cleaned, Sherlock looked to be in a bit of a daze, on the border of shock. His voice was steady but lacked its usual assuredness, as if it might break at any moment. All told, he looked as though he was fighting hard to keep himself together. If he had been any other man, Lestrade would have pressed him, asked him if he was all right. But with Sherlock, he looked for a way to keep his brain distracted, working.

'But you couldn't have known it was me up there.'

'Of course I knew.'

'How? You thought I'd been arrested.'

'You had texted to say you'd escaped. I didn't believe it was you, naturally, not at first. But when the guns fired I knew it was someone looking for John, because why would his abductors fire on each other? It was doubtful the Yard could have reached the same conclusion about the convent as I had, so it was only logical that it was you who had found it by following the tracker you had slipped into my pocket Thursday morning. Two armed men, firing at one another, the first shot from a Browning pistol and the next two from a P226 SIG. I know the difference. The first shooter was the aggressor, a man with military background, given that he was carrying the Browning, so quite possibly Caldwell, but he only got off one shot before you took him down with the SIG. Am I wrong?'

Lestrade shook his head in wonder and admiration. 'You know you're not.'

'That's how I knew it was safe to leave John where he was. I knew you would find him.'

'Why did I have to, Sherlock?'

Sherlock looked past him to the hospital doors, disinclined to answer.

'Why did you leave him there? You didn't need to run from me, so if you knew— Oh. Of course. The gunshots. I heard them too. Who were you running from?'

'The point is,' said Sherlock, 'I came back.'

His copper sense told him not to push this one. Not yet. The time would come, though, when he wouldn't allow himself to back away. 'I'm glad,' said Lestrade, 'that you haven't gone. To be honest, I didn't know if I'd be seeing you again.'

'I had to know that he would'—Sherlock swallowed hard—'be all right.'

'Come and see for yourself,' said Lestrade, taking one step toward Barts. But Sherlock didn't move. 'It's past visiting hours. I've set up a security detail. Donovan's on it, but I can send her on the other officers away for a bit. No one would see you.'

He dragged his eyes away from the hospital. 'It's been good seeing you again, inspector,' said Sherlock, taking one step backward and making as though to leave.

'Don't, Sherlock, please.' He restrained himself from grabbing Sherlock's arm and physically detaining him. 'Think about it. Moriarty's men—they know you're alive now. We captured one and killed another, but there are still two more out there, at least. You think they'll simply admit defeat and leave you alone? They know how to get to you now.' He nodded to the hospital, indicating what lay inside. 'You know it won't stop. We have to keep fighting. And you can't keep lying to him. Don't make everything he has gone through, everything he has lost, worth nothing to him in the end.'

Having said his piece, Lestrade backed away, out of the shadows and into the lit street. 'You'll want to get that looked at, in any case,' he said morosely, pointing to Sherlock's head wound. Then he turned away to cross back to Barts, silently praying that Sherlock would follow but not daring to look back. A few seconds later, however, he heard Sherlock's light steps behind him, and a lamppost cast their two shadows together into a halo of orange. He breathed out a silent sigh of relief. As they reached the pavement, he noticed the other shadow looking up the wall of Barts, to the roof, and he realised that Sherlock must have been thinking of the day he fell.

**Saturday, 03.41 hrs**

'Ouch, Molly, that hurts.'

Sherlock perched stiffly on a swivel stool in the lab he had once thought of possessively as his own, something of a home away from home. Now he felt like an interloper. Though sitting, he was still rather too tall for Molly to get a good angle, and he cricked his head to the right to give her better access to the split skin on the side of his forehead, just at the hairline. She was a mortuary attendant, not a doctor or nurse, and she fumbled a bit with the needle.

'Sorry,' she said, wincing her apology. 'I'm not use to stitching up the live ones.'

True to form, her crack fell flat.

'You should really get a proper doctor to look at this,' she said. 'Might be a concussion.'

'It's fine,' he said. 'You're doing fine.'

She continued to stitch him up in silence. Somewhere above their heads, the reinstated DI was arranging things to make it possible for Sherlock to visit John without being seen. They were waiting for the text announcing the 'all clear'.

As she was bandaging the swollen skin, she broke the silence again. 'I knew you would find him. I knew everything would be okay.' When he didn't join in her relief or affirm her statement, she said, 'It . . . it _is_ all over now, isn't it?'

'It's no easier to answer when it's over than it is to say when it all began.'

'What do you mean? It all started when he was, you know, taken.'

'Did it? Or did it start forty months ago when I faked my death? Or was it when Moriarty started strapping bombs to strangers just to watch me dance? Or was it when he killed Carl Powers as a boy?' His eyes were hardened, focused intensely on a spot on the floor to avoid meeting her eyes. 'There are no true endings anymore than there are true beginnings. This—this whole thing, whatever _this_ is—keeps going. Nothing stops.'

She looked abashed and dropped her eyes. Slowly, she began cleaning up the rubbish left behind from administering to his injury. He realised that he had said the wrong thing. Awkwardly, he sought to correct it.

'Thank you, Molly.'

Surprised, she raised her eyes to him. 'For what?'

'For all you did today. Being there for Lestrade and helping him get to John. And for'—he shifted uncomfortably—'helping me. Before. For not telling anyone what really happened that day. For keeping my secret all this time.'

She smiled sadly. 'I wish you hadn't asked it of me,' she said. At his look of surprise and barely masked hurt, she clarified, 'What I mean is, I wish that there had been another way.'

'There _was_ no other way. It was me or them.'

'I know but . . . Everything'—she shrugged helplessly—'everything fell apart after you'd gone. John, he just melted away, and it was like he'd gone, too. After the funeral, I went to see Mrs Hudson once to, you know, see how she was holding up, but she wouldn't even let me through the door. She wasn't cruel about it, she just couldn't. Said it was too painful to see me, even just little ol' me, because I reminded her too much of you. And Greg, he could barely look at me. He sent other officers to the mortuary when he had to, and soon I never saw him at all, not until last week. He hid it well, but he was in pain too. We were all so . . . alone, without you. Greg's wife left him, and Mrs Hudson, she doesn't have any family in London, and as for me— Well, John probably had it worst of all.'

'He had Mary.' Sherlock's voice caught, so he was grateful that Molly pretended not to notice.

'Not for those first two years he didn't. He didn't have anyone. You were, I don't know, the glue that held us all together. So when you left . . .'

He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. He had never seen himself in the light that Molly Hooper now shone on him, and he didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to hear how he had caused those he cared about such pain.

'Will you leave again?' she asked suddenly.

'I don't know.' He realised, for the first time, that he really didn't. 'It won't be the same as it was before.'

'No, it won't,' she agreed. 'That doesn't mean it won't be good.'

At that moment, Molly's mobile sounded. She retrieved the text:

_Room 319 in intensive care. _  
_Take the east wing lifts.  
GL_

'How do I come back, Molly?'

'You don't do it alone,' she answered him. 'You let your friends help you.'

He rose to his feet, still looking at the floor. 'And John? Was my saving him just one more act of cruelty against him?'

She waited to speak until his eyes rose and met hers. 'We need our friends, Sherlock. Very soon, John will need _you_.'

**Saturday, 03.53 hrs**

The third floor was quiet, as was most of Britain around the four o'clock hour, before the sun began to slowly stretch its hand across London. Lights were lowered, and the only people milling about were midnight-shift doctors and nurses and the occasional insomniac patient. Sherlock had borrowed a lab coat from downstairs so that he would not be mistaken for a patient or unsanctioned visitor, but he kept clear of others as much as he could, just in case.

Near the end of the empty hallway, standing before the double doors leading to intensive care, he saw Lestrade, acting as guard. He was just sending a text, but as Sherlock drew nearer he put away his phone.

'Security detail has been relieved for the next four hours,' he said, leading him through the double doors. 'All but me and Donovan. But I've sent her to fetch coffee. The good kind, from the twenty-four hour cafe six streets away.'

'You must take your coffee cold.'

'She'll be gone twenty minutes, I reckon.'

'Thank you.'

They reached room 319. 'The nurses were harder to shake,' Lestrade continued. 'But they shouldn't give us any trouble for a bit. They can monitor the life support machines remotely.'

Sherlock nodded distractedly as he peered through the small glass window of the door to verify that the space was clear of doctors, nurses, or anyone else. What he saw was a man in a hospital bed. He gripped the door handle, entered, closed the door behind him, leaving Lestrade to stand watch outside.

For security reasons, all the beds were empty but one, and on the far side of the room, the one window's blinds were drawn closed and curtained. His first impulse was to visually inventory the room, to read its story and note any oddities. But a stronger urge kept his eyes riveted on the man in the hospital bed, the one hooked up to IVs and monitors and machines.

He suddenly disliked the guise he had assumed. _Not here, not now._ He needed to be himself, the truest, most unguarded, naked version of himself he could manage. So he shucked the lab coat and tossed it onto an empty bed. Only then could he allow himself to draw nearer the bed.

John lay as though asleep, but _sleep_ wasn't the right word. A suffering man does not sleep but is trodden down into a place where wakefulness is too painful to bear. That was what this state of unconsciousness reflected, more than anything—an anguished body's retreat into senselessness, a tormented mind's escape into a stupor. Instinctively, Sherlock began to mentally scan him, cataloguing once again all the damage the naked eye could take in; but he forced himself to stop. His emotions were overwhelming his logical brain. He focused for a moment on the steady rhythm of the ventilator, a constant to which he could match his own breaths. It stabilised him.

Although John was unconscious, he was not perfectly still: Sherlock saw that the fingers of his left hand, those not splinted due to breaks, clenched and unclenched irregularly, but frequently. A little like it had before, when he was stressed or worried or overcome. Hesitantly, Sherlock placed his own hand over John's. Gently, he squeezed. A few seconds passed, and to his relief, the tightness seemed to melt, and John's hand relaxed against the mattress.

He hadn't understood why John had spoken to the headstone, those many months ago. It was irrational, a specious gesture at best, to speak to something inanimate, something that couldn't understand or respond. It was illogical, too, to speak to a man in a coma. But he wanted to. For the first time, he understood John's need to speak to the dead. And he wondered, though not for the first time, what words he had spoken. John would have gotten it right, whatever he had said, because he was not a stranger to matters of the heart. Sherlock, however, was at a loss. He parted his lips but found he couldn't speak. No words seemed right enough, full enough. He tried again. Softly, as if to make sure that John would be the only one to hear him, he simply said, 'I'm . . . so sorry, John. For all that I've done to you. I'm so sorry.'

He allowed himself fifteen minutes, only fifteen minutes, to stand at that bedside and hold John's hand. But he knew, when those minutes were expired, he would have to leave.

Outside the door, Lestrade sent another text to Molly.

_He's with him right now. Did_  
_he mention what happened_  
_after he ran?  
GL_

A moment later, she texted back.

_No. I asked him where his shoes_  
_were, but he only said two words:_  
_'A trade.' I gave him hospital_  
_slippers for his feet.  
MH_

Lestrade frowned at the text, then he checked his watch. He had reserves of ways to delay Donovan longer, if needed, though frankly he hoped not to have to use them and reignite her suspicions. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to tell Sherlock to hurry it up. He peeked into the room through the glass and saw him still standing motionless at John's side, his back to the door; then he heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Quickly, he readied the first excuse on the tip of his tongue as he turned, but he swallowed it down quickly, for it was not Sgt Donovan striding toward him, but Mycroft Holmes.

'Mr Holmes!' he said in surprise, barely keeping himself from shouting. Oh god, how would he warn Sherlock or put off Mycroft? He wasn't prepared for this one.

'Mycroft, please,' said Mycroft. 'After today, you and I are more than professional acquaintances, I should think. You did well today, Greg. You don't mind that I call you Greg, do you? Yes, admirably well. I confess, after our little wreck, I was concerned that you were no longer in any condition to carry on with John's recovery. But you pulled it off spectacularly. How's the shoulder? And weren't you shot?'

'Your SIG saved my life,' said Lestrade. 'And, for that matter, John's.'

'Just through there, is he?'

'Yes, but he's only lately come out of surgery. He's not woken up yet, and the doctors say that it's best if he's not disturbed.'

'I'm _hardly_ a disturbance,' said Mycroft, taking a step toward the room.

Lestrade stepped in his path. 'I really think now's not the best time. Perhaps we can talk somewhere private. There's a waiting room down the hall, just around the corner—'

His tongue froze when he heard a small click as the door handle of 319 turned. Mycroft, hearing the same, looked past him, and Lestrade spun, pointlessly thinking of what he could do or say to stop two trains from colliding. That's when Sherlock stepped out of the room. His head was bowed and his face drawn, and he seemed to be in a fog. It wasn't until he had closed the door and taken two steps that he bothered to lift his eyes to Lestrade. Instead, he saw Mycroft, standing just over Lestrade's shoulder. The rubber pads on his slippered feet squeaked against the tiles as he halted in his path.

The colour drained from Mycroft's face, and Sherlock's eyes grew wide with alarm, his face becoming as stone. Lestrade didn't know what to do. He had never seen Mycroft Holmes shocked into silence, or Sherlock, already in an emotionally vulnerable state, so caught off his guard. Neither man was sentimental, not by a long stretch, so to see them both so clearly overcome was, mildly put, discomfiting to witness. Wanting to melt away from the scene, Lestrade lowered his head and slowly stepped out of the line of sight between the two brothers.

But the shock was fast evaporating, and other emotions—ones more familiar to their characters—began to encroach. Mycroft frowned and his eyes flashed as though in anger; for his part, Sherlock seemed annoyed. At last, one of them broke the silence.

'I knew you were alive,' said Mycroft, raising his chin.

'You did not,' said Sherlock, his tone tinged with defiance.

Mycroft huffed. 'Well, it was a lie a damn lot easier to live with than believing that I had killed my little brother!'

The remark seemed to shift something in Sherlock. He looked genuinely confused. '_I_ jumped. Nothing you ever said or did to me factored into that decision.'

'Would you have been on that rooftop at all, save it were for James Moriarty? He was obsessed with you. And who do you think fed that obsession? Where do you think _Richard Brook_ got all that information about you? It wasn't from John.'

A light came on in Sherlock's eyes as he understood things that Lestrade could not. But Lestrade recognised the tone of confession. He had never taken Mycroft Holmes for a man of regret, but there was no mistaking the unveiling of his guilty conscience. In some way that Lestrade couldn't possibly fathom, Mycroft had betrayed his younger brother, and he clearly expected anger, intensified resentment, or naked loathing as a response. But to Sherlock's credit, it didn't seem to make any difference. He nodded once, curtly, and swallowed away a lump in his throat. 'Well,' he said. 'Richard Brook wasn't even real. And Moriarty's dead. So.' His eyes flicked back to the room where John lay between life and death but made no further comment.

'You should have come to me.'

'What for?'

'What for! I could have helped you!'

'I didn't need your help.'

'That's a laugh. Look at you. You've been living in squalor. Been sneaking across borders, have you? Scraping for food and shelter, taking false names—?' He shot a sharp glance at Lestrade. 'Oh. Oh, I see. This is Arthur Doyle, is it? Your _most trusted_ man in the field?'

Lestrade shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. 'I told you he was a bit good.'

At the same time, Sherlock understood something, too, and turned to Lestrade with the air of accusation. '_This_ is who I've been texting for two days. _You _were never in Camden!'

Lestrade's cheeks reddened but he did not apologise.

'Of course,' said Mycroft. 'I was wondering about the _rudeness_ of those texts. It all makes sense now.'

'And I'd been wondering about the _idiocy_ in them.'

'Gentlemen—' said Lestrade as a warning to lower their escalating voices. Both men ignored him.

Mycroft stepped forward menacingly, crossing the distance between himself and Sherlock. 'If not for me, you'd have known nothing about Slough or Caldwell!'

'I _gave _you those names. What I _needed_ to know, I figured out on my own. You gave me nothing crucial.'

'Poppycock!'

They were seconds away from blows. Lestrade debated whether it was wise to interfere with the reality that Mycroft had released him from police custody, provided him with a mobile, with a gun—

'I didn't need you before, and I didn't need you tonight. Look what has happened to John!'

Mycroft looked stung. In a rare instant of clarity, Lestrade understood the full impact of those words in a way that the Holmes brothers did not. Mycroft believed Sherlock blamed him, for inciting the chain of events that had led to John's kidnapping, so he had no right to involve himself now. But Sherlock was actually blaming himself. This wasn't Mycroft's burden; it wasn't Mycroft's mistake to fix—it was Sherlock's. He should bear the responsibility. But Lestrade knew they were both wrong. If there was any blame to assign, it belonged to Moriarty.

The brothers stared at each other for a long moment, glowering. Then something seemed to melt in Mycroft. Tentatively, he reached out and gripped Sherlock's upper arm. 'I am sorry, Sherlock,' he said. 'I am.'

Sherlock nodded subtly, and Lestrade saw Mycroft give his arm a quick squeeze. For a man unused to showing physical affection—or any kind of affection—this was a grand gesture. That Sherlock didn't pull away meant something, too. Then the hand fell away and Mycroft resumed an air of governmental superiority. 'You and I need to talk, it seems. Not now, but soon.' He nodded to the room. 'How is he?'

'He's dying.'

Lestrade sucked in his breath and said, 'That's not true. Surgery went well. The gunshot wound was not fatal—'

'But massive blood loss, severe dehydration, starvation, and near-fatal beatings have caused enough trauma that the likelihood of his recovering is slim at best. According to the charts left in his room, his doctors believe he may never wake.' Sherlock spoke with a straight face and level voice, but his eyes were deeply pained.

'Let me move him,' said Mycroft. 'I know of a private facility in Cambridge, with top physicians, the most state-of-the-art technology—'

'Moving him will kill him for sure. Besides, he would want to stay in London. He always did.'

Maybe Sherlock wasn't aware of it, but Lestrade saw it: Sherlock was resuming his place in John's life, making decisions on his behalf, in what he believed was his best interest, as if he were family. And Mycroft didn't question it. For that matter, nor did Lestrade. Barts might have a different take on it, however. Nevertheless, it seemed that Sherlock was actually rethinking his decision to disappear.

'May I see him?' said Mycroft, acquiescing to Sherlock's assumed privilege.

Sherlock was blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. A long moment passed before he nodded, stiffly. Together, the two brothers re-entered the room.

Just as the door to 319 closed behind them, Sgt Donovan appeared around the corner, bearing coffee.

'You were right,' she said, handing him a lukewarm Styrofoam cup. 'It's good stuff. I don't know if it's worth the walk, though. Or the cab fare. Sorry it's a bit cold.'

'Mm. No. It's good. Thank you.' He sipped and pretended to appreciate the quality above his true estimation of the stuff.

'Any new word?' Her eyes flitted to the door.

'Nothing.'

'You're sure you don't want to be relieved? You've had quite the night.'

'Nah, I couldn't rest if I tried. I feel as sharp as ever. But you've been rushing about all day, too. Nearing twenty-four hours. Get off your feet, Donovan. There's a waiting room across from the lifts. Lifts ought to be monitored anyway.'

She seemed on the verge of protesting, but with an encouraging gesture of his head she conceded.

When he was sure she was out of sight, he peered surreptitiously through the window and saw the Holmes brothers standing side by side at the foot of the hospital bed, their backs to the door. Mycroft's right hand rested on Sherlock's left shoulder, and Lestrade could see that he was talking, though he couldn't imagine what he might be saying. For his part, Sherlock was as still as a statue.

Twenty minutes passed before Mycroft stepped out of the room. He sighed and began to button his coat. 'It's difficult just looking at him,' he said. Lestrade didn't know if he meant John or Sherlock, so he just agreed with a nod. 'I'm afraid I can't stay. But I'll be back. Soon. You'll be here to look after him, I take it?'

Again, Lestrade didn't know to whom he referred, but it didn't matter. The answer was the same either way. 'I'm here.'

'I told Sherlock he should leave and get some sleep. He looks utterly knackered, and John's not going anywhere. But he near snapped my head off at the suggestion.' He smiled a little sadly. 'I've missed our little squabbles.' He took a step, halted, and turned back. 'You know something, Greg? It's funny. I've been watching over John Watson for three years as if, in some symbolic way, I was keeping Sherlock alive. But it was John himself, just _being_, that really saved him. I will forever be indebted to the good doctor, won't I?'

He walked away, down the hall, toward the lifts. When he was out of sight, Lestrade peered again through the glass into room 319. Sherlock was sitting now, having dragged a chair to John's side. His elbows were on his knees, and his face was in his hands. Above him, the heart monitor echoed a steady pulse.


	24. Chapter 24: To the Roof of St Barts

**Chapter 24: To the Roof of St Barts**

**DAY 11**

**Saturday, 08.12 hrs**

Earlier that morning, around six o'clock, the nurses came into 319 to administer to the comatose patient: rebandaging wounds, checking vital signs, and refilling the morphine drip. If they were startled to see a strange man sleeping slumped in a chair, they made no sign of it. Visiting hours did not begin for another two hours, but none of them had the heart to wake him, and none would see him go. They whispered to one another that he looked angelic, and wouldn't that be just about right? How else could Mr Watson have survived all he had, if not for the presence of a guardian angel? They let him be, carefully draping a blanket over him as a sign that he was welcome there.

Then, shortly after eight, a loud clatter on the white, tiled floor brought him fully alert. He sprang to his feet, casting off the blanket and spreading his arms wide, as though to shield the man in the hospital bed with his body. But there had never been less of a threat. Mrs Hudson stood in the doorway, her handbag and an aluminium cane at her feet, because her hands were covering her mouth. Above her fingertips, her eyes were round with shock, and her head shook rapidly back and forth in denial.

'No no no,' she said behind her hands.

He wasn't ready for this one. 'Mrs Hudson,' he said gently, stepping forward.

'We buried you. We buried you.' Her hands rose to cover her eyes and her head kept shaking.

'Bags of sand,' he said, coming even closer. 'Weighing roughly twelve stones.'

'No no no,' she said again. When she peeked over the tips of her fingers, Sherlock saw that her eyes shone and tears were falling down her cheeks in rivulets.

He had never felt more contrite. Revealing himself to Lestrade, he had been annoyed, with Mycroft somewhat embarrassed and a little angry; but with Mrs Hudson, he felt ashamed. Above all, he wanted to appease her, and so softly touched her arm.

She pulled away and slapped him hard across the face. The surprise of it stung more than the physical touch, but next moment she was sobbing into his shirt. He couldn't help it then. He put his arms around her and laughed, his voice rumbling in his chest. She continued to cry, clutching his shirt, pounding him weakly in the shoulder with one closed fist, and saying things like, 'You cruel, cruel man,' and 'How could you treat an old woman this way?' He only hugged her more tightly, until the pounding fist stopped and her head lay against his chest. Mrs Hudson, after all, was one of the two people in his adult life he had ever felt natural in touching. As a matter of character, he was not often inclined toward anything more than a handshake, and people usually sensed it, however subconsciously, and maintained their distance. That barrier didn't seem to exist with her, for some reason, and he had always felt it easy, showing her affection, and receiving it. It was easy now, and he realised just how dearly he had missed this.

Sherlock held her until she had regained some composure, which took a fair spot of time. When she was ready, she pulled back and held his head in both hands, to anchor it while she looked into his eyes. 'My boy, my boy,' she said. Then she kissed his cheeks and forehead repeatedly, which he bore patiently. 'How I've missed you! All of you. Even the nastier bits.' To her credit, she didn't ask where he had been or why he had gone. She had never been one to demand answers of him. 'This is real, isn't it? I'm not dreaming again?'

'This is real,' he promised her.

She sighed, and her face was a mix of joy and pain. 'I was afraid of that,' she said, turning to look at John. She held Sherlock's hand and stepped closer to the bed. Mindful of the needles and wires, she stroked John's arm with soft fingertips. 'Oh John. Dear John. What did they do to you?'

'Just knocked him around a bit,' said Sherlock softly, not wishing to upset her further. But she wasn't fooled.

'Like they knocked around his Mary?' said Mrs Hudson.

Sherlock didn't reply. Mrs Hudson's fingertips lightly touched John's brow, pushing back some of his hair, which was wet and matted to his forehead. He was fighting a fever. 'Poor boy,' she whispered. To keep from being overcome, she looked away, back to the fallen cane. 'I brought that for him. He stored it away in the lower flat, the one I can't get anyone to rent, with . . . all the other stuff he never took from Baker Street.'

Sherlock's stuff, she meant. He marvelled that it was all still there.

'I heard about his leg and thought he might need it again.'

'Lestrade called you,' Sherlock surmised. The detective inspector must have deemed the threat to be null, if he let her leave the safe house. He frowned at the carelessness.

'No,' said Mrs Hudson. 'Molly Hooper. You remember her, don't you? Mousey little thing, sweet as they come, works here in the hospital? Anyway, she called about an hour ago to let me know . . .'

_How do I come back, Molly?_

_You let your friends help you._

She was already trying to help. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, just yet.

The door opened and a nurse walked inside. 'I need to re-dress Mr Watson's leg, if you'll give me a few minutes,' she said.

Sherlock scanned the nurse and took mental note of her name, as though to detect whether she was a danger, then nodded reluctantly. He felt Mrs Hudson slide an arm through his to lead him out of the room. 'Come, Sherlock,' she said. 'He's in good hands. I saw a lovely tea room downstairs on my way in. It's a cold morning, so something hot should be nice, I think. And we can talk about the rent.'

**Saturday, 10.17 hrs**

Lestrade got the call at half nine: Alexander Slough was dead.

Asphyxiation. That was the official report. In more laymen's terms, someone had smothered his face with a pillow. _Someone who didn't want Slough to talk_, thought Lestrade angrily. He had been on his way to interrogate him about, among other things, the 'new location' Caldwell had mentioned, supposing that that was where he might find his accomplices. Now he would never get the chance.

He sent Donovan to Royal London Hospital, where Slough had been receiving treatment for a concussion and minor electrical burns, to investigate Slough's murder. To question hospital personnel and review surveillance footage. Nevertheless, he was doubtful she would turn anything up. He suspected it was an inside job, another member of the elusive network.

Meanwhile, he returned to the Yard, where interrogations of _London's finest_ were still underway.

He dropped a copy of the five-by-seven photograph on the table in front of Everett Stubbins. He placed his hands on the table, leaning in from where he stood. 'How long have you been watching him?' he asked.

'You don't understand, Lestrade, sir,' said Stubbins, looking up at him with desperate eyes. 'I didn't want to see anyone hurt, but I had no choice. He came to me just a few months ago because he knew I worked in the Yard, and he needed eyes. He threatened me, and my family—'

'Bullshit.' Lestrade straightened and folded his arms. 'You were Moriarty's man before you were ever Moran's. Don't think I don't know whose finger was hovering over the trigger three years ago, ready to take me out if Holmes didn't jump. You've been tied up in this web for ages, and guess what, Stubs. It's coming down.'

Stubbins' jaw tightened and he looked away from the photograph to the two-way mirror. Then he smirked, and with that smirk, his entire demeanour was transformed. 'Is that your boy on the other side of the glass?' he asked conspiratorially. 'Did they get him to _come out and play_?'

'You're sick,' said Lestrade. 'Answer the question. This photograph'—he stabbed a finger directly in the centre of it—'was taken in June. That's four months now. You didn't realise you'd been captured in a picture, now did you? That's why your boys took it off the wall of Mary Morstan's flat when they abducted her, to obscure that connection. So. Just how long had you had your eye on John Watson?'

'You seem to have it all figured out already, inspector. Why should I tell you anything?'

'Because your pal Slough? He's squealing like a pig.' Lestrade was bluffing now, a classic cop tactic that Stubbins was very familiar with. Slough was dead, but Stubbins didn't know it. And Lestrade was counting on a modicum of doubt in Stubbins' mind to make him believe Slough would give him up. 'I'm in a forgiving mood, though. Today. So whoever tells me _more_ gets off easier. You're already being indicted in two kidnappings, as an accessory to torture, rape, murder—'

'The charges won't stick. I was never in Watson's flat. And you can't prove I had any knowledge of what was going on in that convent.'

'You saw the photos. What did you _think_ was going on?'

Stubbins was glaring at the two-way mirror, suspecting. He was wrong, but not, perhaps, without reason. Lestrade continued.

'Who is the other man in the photograph?' he asked, pointing at the second man, the one sitting just behind Stubbins, slightly out of focus; both were watching John.

'Never met him.'

Angrily, Lestrade snatched the photo off the table.

'You know, he said, 'Sgt Donovan is damned convinced you had something to do with the Vander Maten murder. And believe me, she'll find something to prove it. But I've got my own theory on that one. Want to hear it? John Watson's kidnapping had been carefully planned. Weeks and weeks, if not months, of careful plotting. But when the time came to execute it, you needed me out of the way. Isn't that right? You couldn't risk his case falling to _me_. I'm flattered you think me such a threat. Hell, you were right. I am. So you and your people, you created another case to _distract _me. You murdered an innocent man just to keep me busy.'

'Prove it.'

'I told you—I'm leaving that happy task to Donovan. She's already halfway there. We'll pin every single one of you: Burch, and Gibson, and Moore. And of course, O'Higgins, the mastermind—'

'O'Higgins was hardly the mastermind. He was just a pawn, our Aunt Sally, easily set up, easily knocked dow . . .' He trailed off when he saw Lestrade was smiling. 'Oh, I see. You weren't sure about O'Higgins.' He snorted. 'And I just gave him to you.' He shrugged, wiping his nose with the hand that wasn't cuffed to the table. 'Nine out of ten then, eh, Lestrade? Not bad.'

'Ten?'

'You think you're so clever. You think, following that nutter around all those years, you picked up on some actual detective skills, that some of his brilliance rubbed off. You're a fool. Not too long now, you'll find out just how big a fool.'

Lestrade scowled. 'You don't scare me. You and your little conspiracy ring—'

'Oh no. We're nothing. _Nothing_. A single thread. That's all. When really, the masterpiece is so much grander.'

'Is it, now? All right. Let's talk about that. Maybe you can start at the beginning, when you first became, what would you call it? Recruited?'

Stubbins shook his head, smiling. 'Go ahead and charge me, Lestrade. If you can. Right now, I want representation. I'm done talking.'

Lestrade sighed. Pocketing the photo, he turned to leave.

'Oh, and Lestrade.'

Lestrade paused, his hand on the door.

'How's our boy Johnny? Half alive or half dead? Either way, Moran left him half a man.' Lestrade glared. 'You don't come back from that, you know.'

'You son of a—'

'Go ahead and try to bring down this web. It grows faster than you can snap its threads, but you can try. But you see, we have our eye on him now. A legion of us. You're not the only one Moran sent those photos to. And we're all . . . intrigued. Now we want them both. Sherlock Holmes, _and John Watson.'_

**Saturday, 10.24 hrs**

Sherlock sat tea with Mrs Hudson for more than two hours, watching the clock ticking on the wall behind her and speaking little. He was eager to return to intensive care, if only for an update, but also to keep eyes on the hospital staff. The only things stopping him from abruptly quitting the tea room were knowing that the officers standing guard would recognise him as a man who had fallen to his death three years before (he didn't want that spectacle), and knowing that Mrs Hudson needed time to make a fuss over him and get used to the idea that he was not dead after all.

But for all his best efforts, his patience was wearing thin. He _needed_ to return to John's side. He was on the cusp of saying so when Mrs Hudson beat him to it.

'You've barely touched your tea, Sherlock,' she said. 'But perhaps you're not too keen. There now. I'm sure they'll let us back in to see him. Shall we?'

They both pushed back their chairs, but before Sherlock could rise out of his, a hand clapped his shoulder and held him in place.

'Thank you, Mrs Hudson, he'll be along shortly.'

Sherlock turned a glare up at his brother.

Addressing Mrs Hudson but smiling down at Sherlock, Mycroft continued, 'He and I need to talk.'

'I'll see you soon, Sherlock,' said Mrs Hudson, touching his other shoulder as she passed him by. Mycroft moved around the table and sat in her vacated seat.

'His condition is unchanged since you last saw him,' said Mycroft. 'There's no rush.'

'That's not the _point_.'

'And I've already conducted full checks on every doctor, nurse, and orderly charged with his care—and every hospital staff personnel on the third floor, besides. Lestrade's security detail is tight, and mine's tighter.'

'What do you want, Mycroft?'

Mycroft's eyebrows rose into what had once been his hairline. 'I spend more than three years believing my little brother is dead, I learn mere _hours_ ago that he is not, and you ask me what I want?'

'I did what I had to do,' said Sherlock by way of explanation, but he was looking away from Mycroft, and his voice was small.

Frowning, Mycroft ran his finger around the rim of Mrs Hudson's empty teacup. 'I do not doubt it. Lestrade told me about the snipers. About why you fell. I still maintain that you should have come to _me_.' Sherlock opened his mouth to retort, but Mycroft continued. 'Come home with me. Eat. Rest.'

'I've eaten. I'm rested.'

Mycroft sighed. 'A cup of tea and a bite of toast hardly merits _eating_. And spending a night in a _chair_—'

'I'm fine.'

'A change of clothes and some proper shoes, at the very least.'

'I said I'm fine.'

'Look at me, Sherlock.'

Sherlock's jaw hardened, but he lifted his eyes the cold tea before him. His fingernails dragged harsh lines of red across the back of his weaker hand.

'You found him. In time. He's hurt, but he'll be all right.'

'_All right?_' Sherlock's eyes flashed angrily. 'Have you read his medical chart?'

'As a matter of fact—'

'Read it again. _Then_ tell me he'll be all right, if you can't _see_ his condition for yourself. Read about every laceration, every stab wound, every bruise, every broken bone. Two fingers, Mycroft—the middle phalanx of the left index finger and proximal phalanx of the right fourth finger—_snapped_, probably with a pair of pliers. Two ribs—the 7th and 10th—cracked from the beatings, and a broken nose, and a hairline fracture in his jaw, and a minor concussion at the left temple. Then read about the starvation, the severe dehydration, the chilblains on his extremities, the mild hypothermia, and chemical burns on his face from ammonium hydroxide and on his feet from sodium hypochlorite. Read about the blood loss and infections and _bullet_ wound.' His face twisted in pain. 'Then, if you still have the stomach for it, read _again_ about the rectal tearing and bruising. The way they _savaged_ him. _All right?_ He is _not_ all right. I found him too late, Mycroft. Ten days too late. Three _years_ too late.'

'He's alive. Despite all else.'

'He may never wake.'

'Give him time. The body needs time.'

'And the rest of him? Until I know, I can't . . .' But he couldn't continue. He had to look away again. Mycroft remained silent while he regained his composure. When he spoke again, his voice was huskier, darker. 'I can't leave. I should be out there even now,' he said fiercely, '_looking for them_. Making them suffer for what they've done to him. But I can't leave.'

'Looking for whom, Sherlock?'

Sherlock passed a trembling hand under his nose.

'Tell me what you know.'

But Sherlock looked like he might be ill. So Mycroft changed tactics.

'I didn't go to your funeral,' he said instead.

The abrupt change in the conversation took Sherlock by surprise. For a long moment, they simply stared at one another from across the table. At last, Sherlock broke the silence. 'Neither did I,' he said gruffly. 'What does that matter?'

'I should have gone. And I'm sorry I didn't.'

'Why?'

'I just should have.'

Sherlock chewed his tongue a moment before speaking again. 'If it's so important to you, you can make sure you're at the next one.'

'Don't. Do. That.'

'Then let's not talk about this.'

'Fine. Then tell me what you know about Ms Morstan's killers. Because we _are _going to talk, Sherlock. About one thing or another. You tell me what you think would be most _useful_.'

**DAY 12**

**Sunday, 16.02 hrs**

Not long. Not long now. They would be coming back. A new day, a new cut. The scalpel digging, digging, deeper and deeper until it made another slit in his shredded soul. And the ghosts would return with them—visions, memories, auguries—and watch him suffer with their unforgiving eyes, eyes that said _this is good, this is just, you deserve it_. In the distance, someone sang happily of his demise. Not far off, laughter. Soon. Soon. Another jolt, another lance, his hands forever joined in a perversion of prayer. _Beg me, John, beg me for relief. Let me hear you beg._ Hands sticky with blood and semen. And always thirsty. So thirsty.

He licked his cracked lips.

And tasted . . . nothing.

The gag had been removed. The sting of ammonia was gone. And there was something else.

He was not shivering.

And the fluorescent lights beyond the shield of his eyelids did not flicker.

Wrong. This was wrong. Change was a ruse. _Don't trust it. Fall back. See them, all of them you failed to save: Mary in the chair, Harry on the table, Mike on the floor, Stephens in the bag, Sherlock on the pavement._ Sherlock. And a low voice whispering in his head: _John_. He knew this one. It was the desperate, vulnerable, keep-your-eyes-fixed-on-me _John_.

His eyelids twitched, his lashes fluttered. It hurt, opening his eyes. They were heavy, and the light burned. How easy it would be, sinking back into black. But the light . . . something was off about it. Not flickering. Not even artificial. Daylight. There was a window.

As the room came slowly into focus, so did the _beep—beep—beep _of a machine above his head. He made little sense of it, neither of the noise or the white walls or the smell of sterility. Was this a part of the kitchen? Had they moved him? Where to, and why? What deception _was_ this? Any moment now, Moran would walk through that door, twirling his scalpel, and Daz would come in behind him, hungry and raring to go.

His heart began to race, and the machine matched it.

No. _No_. Calm. Breathe. Any change will draw attention. Pretend to sleep. Pretend you haven't noticed the trick. But the fog was clearing, and the room was becoming ordered, familiar: a bed, machines, the cross on the wall, the _smell_—he was in hospital. A place of healing, he had always thought. But he wasn't okay. This wasn't okay! He was never supposed to have left that kitchen. He was to have died down there, alone, forgotten, in the throes of agony to the very end. _Good, just, deserved_. Why wasn't he there? _Why wasn't he there!_

Straining, he lifted his head, groaned, and dropped it back to the pillow. The small effort exhausted him. As he lay back into the pillow, despising its softness, several things passed through his mind as he tried to make sense of himself:

The light. It was day. He was in a room above the ground.

He was alive. IVs ran into both arms. His mouth was parched. His body was clothed. He felt pain, but not the intensity of pain it merited. Morphine. Yes, there was the morphine drip.

He was alone. And Mary was dead. The room was empty.

Moran was . . .

Near. Oh god, he was close. He could _feel_ how close he was, as if Moran were on his very skin, in his very blood.

_ We're not done playing_.

This was a trick! A lie! The white walls, the cross, the _light_, it was all meant to deceive him into believing he was safe. This was no place of healing. They would let him rise to the surface, only to drag him back down; let him feel relief, only to inflict greater pain. It was the game of opposites and opposition: the sweeter the good, the more bitter the bad. It was the paradox, the union, of pleasure and pain.

In panic, he looked at the door, fearing to see it open, knowing there was the possibility of only one man walking through it. Without warning, a wave of fear fell upon him, crushing him like a wave. His eyes began to water, his shoulders to tremble. As if from a great distance, he heard the voice of Mike Stamford, calling to him.

_ He's coming back for you, John. He'll find you here._

He couldn't lie there, waiting. But he felt too powerless to escape. Slowly, he lifted his hands—arms weak and reluctant to bend—to see the cannulas taped to his arms. He saw, too, that his wrists were wrapped. He felt an absurd urge to draw them together, to press wrist to wrist. When he did, memories of being chained to a drain in the floor flashed through his mind, and he whimpered, bit his bottom lip to halt the noise, and let them fall apart.

This was not real. This could not be his life!

He wanted to sink, to return to the oblivion of unconsciousness and away from whatever new hell was before him. But when he closed his eyes again, he was back there, in that cold kitchen, in a dark freezer, and a hand was running up his leg.

_ Oh Johnny boy, the blade, the blade is carving—_

His lower body spasmed, and he forced his eyes open again, bringing him back from blackness but finding, once again, only emptiness. There was a horror that accompanied being all alone in that room, confused and friendless and still in pain. The involuntary flinch caused a surge of pain to ripple through his body, its epicentre in his left leg. Tears fell from his eyes again, this time from the pain's resurgence. And though it was muted, he felt it all anew: the burning in his back and chest, the dull ache in his thighs, the soreness of every muscle. He was awash in it. But his leg—oh god, why did it hurt so badly?

_ He's coming! Oh god, John, get out!_

He wanted to obey. Oh, how dearly he wanted to obey! But when he tried moving his legs, again, the sharpness, like a hot knife, surged throughout his leg like a ringing bell. He gathered the woven blanket into a fist and, with a great deal of effort, pulled it aside. Below the hospital gown, he saw that the leg was in plaster below the knee. Above the knee, both legs were wrapped. _The cilice_, he thought, dread pooling in the pit of his hollow stomach.

_ Don't think—move._

Harry's voice now. His heart stopped at the sound of it.

_ Don't let him take you, John. Not again. Not again._

He hurt too badly; he felt too weak. But Harry was right. He couldn't let them take him, not again. He couldn't bear another minute of this, the hell of his body, the hell of his own mind. He could escape. No more hurt, no more sorrow. Nothing.

Not for the first time in his life, he cast his eyes around the room, thinking desperately of ways to do the deed and end the pain. There would be syringes in those cupboards over there, surely. He could inject air bubbles directly into his bloodstream. The bubble would lodge in his heart, stopping the blood flow from the right ventricle to his lungs. Or he could manipulate the machine to make him overdose on morphine, throwing him back into a coma, stopping his breath and his heart.

But they would stop him. The machines were wired to his every heart beat and breath—they would give him away. There was no time, no time.

Get out, get out, get out.

He had seconds, mere seconds, before they found him.

_ Run, John!_

_Mary! Oh, Mary!_ He trapped a sob in his throat, squeezed his eyes tightly in anticipation of the pain, and moved. He seized hold of the hollow tubes running into his right arm, and yanked. At once, the machine began to scream. He paid it no heed but grabbed the needle in his other arm and pulled it out, too. With pain coursing throughout his body, and fuelled only by adrenaline and fear, he divested himself of EKG pads. That's when he discovered a chest tube, inserted through a small incision near his armpit. It was no longer draining fluid, but he wouldn't have cared either way. Gritting his teeth and with eyes streaming, he pulled it out.

Then he rolled himself off the bed. He landed hard on his knees and cried aloud.

The machines continued to blare their betrayal.

He would never make it to the door, not before they found him, dragged him back to the bed or to a corner or to a closet, and punished him for this.

_ Hide, John!_

But if they didn't see him! Biting down on his tongue, he dragged himself on shaking arms to a spot behind the curtain, pressed himself against the wall, and dragged his knees close to his chest. Hidden behind the bed and curtain both, he could no longer see the door.

Suddenly, he heard the door fly open, and a pair of running feet came to a sudden halt just inside the room. Frozen in terror, he couldn't move, couldn't breathe. He bit down hard on his hand to stifle any sound.

'Oh my god.'

The voice at the door was a woman's, and a moment later, another's joined her. 'Run! Call security!'

The door fell shut again, behind them.

_ Run, John! Run!_

Sobbing, he collapsed sideways, to an elbow. His whole body was quaking, but he pushed, pushed through the fire, let it burn him, and on broken hands and bloody knees he crawled to a chair, against which rested an aluminium cane.

He gripped the cane, and with sweat sliding down his cheeks, he arose on unsteady legs. He told himself that the pains in his legs and the soreness of the bottoms of his feet were nothing to him, that soon they would be nothing at all. But he took a step and gasped, and he swayed. His disused muscles were not ready to support him. He leaned against the bed, doubting now that he could even make it to the door. But he moved the cane, that steady and unbendable appendage, and took another step. The palm grip felt familiar in his hand.

He took a ragged breath, placed a shaky hand on the handle of the door, and opened it.

There was no time to weigh his options, only to act. To his right, commotion. What looked like nurses, shouting into phones, rushing toward the exits. To his left, an empty hallway and a sign for the stairs, just past the lifts. He went left.

Every step was physical anguish. The stitched wounds on the bottoms of his feet were beginning to tear open again under the pressure of his steps, and the blood was slowly soaking through the bandages and to the hospital socks. His legs felt like they were on fire, and his muscles threatened to fold under him. But he pushed forward, sweat glistening on his brow, meaning only to make it to the stairwell. There, he could rest, breathe, and gather his strength for the climb to the top.

_I'm running, Mary. I'm running_.

He knew how to get there; he'd been once before, after, because he had needed to see what it was like, standing on that precipice, feeling the earth tilt beneath him. In his mind, he was already standing there. It was just a matter of mind and body coming into sync.

There, he would fall. Simply fall. It would be the easiest thing in the world.

There was a waiting room to his right, but he barely saw it, so fixated was he on his solitary goal to reach the stairs. He kept on, nose pointing forward, walking, walking, cut off from everything around him, a mind and body with a single and ultimate purpose.

But as he neared the room, a sound broke through his barriers—a rich, bass voice, ringing with annoyance, emanating from the waiting room and freezing him in his tracks:

'It's not _important_. Why don't you focus your limited mental capacity on something that actually matters? Listen to what I am telling you _now_—he's known as the Slash Man on the streets. You want a description, go and ask the people he's raped'—John flinched violently—'the people you haven't given a damn about up until now. Go on, get their stories, now you're so eager to find him. You're the detectives. That's what you _do_.'

John's heart ached in his chest. He felt like he was falling, shattering.

'We've got men on it, Sherlock.'

He nearly collapsed against the wall. Lestrade's voice. Greg Lestrade. And the word: _Sherlock_. No. Impossible. _It can't be. It can't be!_ He was hallucinating. All of this, just another delusion. He wasn't really standing in that hospital hallway. He wasn't really wearing that hospital gown, and his wrists weren't really free of the wire. And he wasn't really hearing that _voice_. This was all in his head. It explained the cane—his cane—which he'd left behind in that other life. It explained how he could hear Mike, and Harry, and Mary speaking to him, urging him to escape. It explained why he was able to stand, and walk, and why no doctors or nurses had been there to see him wake, to keep him in bed, or to see him exit that room. The reality was, he was still in that cold box of steel, alone, naked, bound. Any minute now, they were coming. They were coming back. Not long. Not long now. He would wake up there, and all of this light would disappear.

_ Run, John!_

He couldn't.

'Of course. London's _finest_.'

That voice! Its scathing tone!

'Now, now, all Anderson is saying is that it'll be easier to move forward once we can interview John. We'll have more to go on. Look, let's not talk about it right now. Not here. I'm sorry, Mrs Hudson . . .'

John unfroze. It was as if unseen hands were holding him upright, pushing him forward. He stepped toward the entryway to the waiting room, and entered.


	25. Chapter 25: Razor

**Chapter 25: Razor**

**DAY 12**

**Sunday, 16.22 hrs**

Sherlock Holmes wondered how the day could get any worse.

It had begun at John's bedside when, shortly before seven in the morning, the machines started blaring. Sherlock jolted upright in the chair to find John thrashing in the bed, back arched, neck rigid, mouth agape, and every muscle contracting violently. He flew to the door, wrenched it open, and cried down the hall for help.

By the time help came (about forty gruelling seconds later, by Sherlock's count), John had stopped seizing and lay limp, but the machines kept protesting his peril. They grew louder and louder in Sherlock's ears until he couldn't bear anymore to look on in silence while the doctors and nurses hovered around John, stabbing him in the chest with needles and feeding a ventilator tube down his throat. The machines kept screaming.

'Do something!' he shouted. 'Damn you all, _help him!_'

They had him forcibly removed and left him to pace in the waiting room, where he proceeded to kick chairs and throw lamps, frightening two small children who were waiting for their father to come out of a routine appendectomy. This time, hospital security apprehended him. Lestrade got the call of a disturbance related to John Watson's safety and rushed in shortly thereafter to sort things out. Unfortunately, Sgt Sally Donovan got the same call. She arrived first. And she brought Anderson.

Lestrade walked in on what seemed to be a one-sided row, Anderson against Sherlock. Anderson was beside himself, taking Sherlock's three-year lie and sudden reappearance as a personal affront. He lobbied against him accusations of all shades of criminality, everything from lying to law enforcement, to breaking and entering, to murder. For her part, Donovan just stared at him in wonder, wavering between disgust and awe. She made one comment, just one: 'So you're Arthur Doyle, are you?' to which Sherlock returned the dry retort, 'You've grown sharper, Sally. Have you figured out that Anderson is a complete wanker yet?' Other than that, she said nothing, just let Anderson sputter and spit and make an arse of himself.

Aside from his jibe at Donovan, Sherlock paid Anderson the ultimate insult of pretending he wasn't even in the room, neither answering questions nor responding to accusations. He didn't waste on Anderson even his customary glower. He paced, thinking only of John, infuriated that he had been forced from his side and that no one would tell him what had happened, or anything of his current condition, or when he'd be let back in to see him. He was left with the image of John convulsing on the bed—limbs contorting so fiercely he feared the bones would break, jaw stretched so wide he feared it might lock—replaying in his head on a constant loop, and he cursed his eidetic memory that captured the horror of it with such clarity. It had looked like the violent struggle of a spirit trying to escape a body prison that refused to yield its claim. Or maybe he had it the wrong way around, and it was the spirit that denied the body release.

Lestrade, coming in at the peak of Anderson's pathetic tirade, had succeeded in separating the two of them, though Sherlock hardly felt placated. He was on the edge. It was thoroughly unavoidable now—he could not return to being a dead man. Of course, he knew in his heart that such was impossible once he had seen Mrs Hudson, _really_ seen her (and not from a distance), and she had seen him. Before then, he could still have retreated into the realm of the departed. Mycroft would have kept his secret, and Lestrade, and Molly. But Mrs Hudson was already talking about stocking his fridge with fruits and vegetables and _didn't you like risotto? I'll make you some risotto_ and _you're not still on about storing body parts next to the milk, surely_ and _oh, you'll play your violin for me again, won't you, Sherlock? I do miss hearing it._ No, he couldn't leave again, not after that.

Unless John wanted him to.

But that _Anderson_ should know the truth made his being alive . . . irritating.

It was nearly noon before someone told him what was going on, and that someone happened to be Molly, whom he'd been texting relentlessly all morning, supplicating her to find out John's condition, as DI Lestrade was occupied with his interrogation of now _nine_ former Yard officers, not to mention hunting for John's other abusers and Slough's killer, and no one else seemed to want to tell him anything. Not a damn thing.

She found him in the lab, where he sat numb and immobile, nowhere near a microscope.

'It was a tonic-clonic seizure,' she told him. 'They don't quite know what caused it, but they are speculating that the abnormal electrical activity in the brain could have been from low blood sugar or a poor response to the blood transfusions. His body is trying to straighten itself out but doesn't quite know how. I know that's not very scientific, but sometimes there are no satisfactory explanations for these things.'

'That it, then? Just a seizure?' He stared straight ahead, unable to feel relief, even though he had been bracing to hear her say those god-awful words: _he didn't make it._ An invisible pressure on his chest seemed to be growing heavier, making it difficult to breathe.

'Well, when he seized, the muscles in his chest sort of . . . squeezed together. One of the broken ribs slipped and pierced his lung. Then his lung collapsed. They've drained the blood and put in a chest tube. He's stable now. Just a bit of a scare. He'll be all right.' She nodded confidently, apparently trying to be reassuring, but he could see by the way she pursed her thin lips together and clutched the fingers on one hand with those of the other that she doubted her own words. She also looked like she might try to hug him again. He couldn't handle that right now, so he stood and resumed his pacing.

Mycroft returned to Barts at one o'clock to tell Sherlock to eat (he did not) and gave him a change of clothes, and Mrs Hudson arrived at two, bearing a vase of yellow lilies and white daisies. The three of them sat together in the waiting room on the third floor. Sherlock, on the understanding that he would behave himself, had been permitted to return. Mrs Hudson and Mycroft made awkward small talk, careful to avoid the subject of the last three years or even the reason that brought them all to Barts. Sherlock did not participate in the frivolous nattering. He sat still, and quiet, and deep in thought, waiting for word.

At half three, Lestrade returned, looking haggard, but he had come not to discuss the details of the ongoing investigation, only to sit with them in silent solidarity. At four, Molly brought them all coffees.

Then, at ten after the hour, Donovan and Anderson stepped into the waiting room.

'Sherlock Holmes, if you would please come with us.'

Sherlock slowly raised his head, but only to glare.

Lestrade got to his feet, closed the top button of his suit coat, and said, 'Not now, sergeant.'

'Are you arresting me?' asked Sherlock. '_Again?_'

'Now, now, nothing like that,' said Lestrade. 'Donovan, this can wait.'

'We're in the middle of an investigation, sir. The longer we wait to question him, the more difficult it becomes to catch Mary Morstan's killers.'

'And we'll need to question John Watson, too, just as soon as he's woken up,' said Anderson.

Sherlock was suddenly standing. 'The hell you will.'

'Sherlock—' said Lestrade, putting out an assuaging hand.

'You'll stay the hell away from him. He'll talk only when—_if_—he wants to. Are we clear?'

'Who are you, his _mother?_' said Anderson. 'Last I checked, you have no legal relationship to John Watson. In fact, no one in this room has. Besides, on paper, _you're_ dead. And in the absence of any familial ties, care and custody of incapacitated individuals falls to the state.'

'Shut up, Anderson,' Lestrade said through closed teeth.

'Don't be absurd, he has Harry!' shouted Sherlock.

'Harry's dead, Sherlock,' said Mycroft. 'Two years now.'

Sherlock closed his mouth, chastened. He hadn't known. His early Monday-morning research had not turned that up.

Mistaking Sherlock's contrition for submission, Anderson sneered, 'Yeah, you missed it.'

Sherlock came forward with his arm drawn back in a fist. Molly _eeped_, Mycroft grabbed his shoulder to restrain him, and as Donovan stepped out of his path, Lestrade stepped into it, ready to take the blow if it came to it, saying, 'I swear to god, Anderson, if you don't _shut up_ this instant—'

'Look,' said Donovan, her mind a single track, and trying her damnedest not to show how Sherlock's resurrection had unbalanced her, 'we just have some standard questions about what you've seen, what you might know. As I understand, you were doing a little investigating on your own—'

'A _little_ investigating,' echoed Sherlock scathingly, throwing his hands in the air and turning away.

'—and you may have learnt something that could help bring John's kidnappers to justice.' She was appealing to his desire for vengeance now. 'We're not even a hundred percent sure who all we're looking for. There was Caldwell and Slough in the convent, but there were likely more players—'

'Sebastian Moran and Daz the Slash Man,' said Sherlock. 'Don't play dumb. You've already spoken to Lestrade.'

'We don't know anything about a Daz, or what he looks like. Daz who?'

'The _Slash Man_. That's what they're calling him on the streets. He's ex-military, probably, like the lot of them. But you would already know this if you had bothered to arrest him _months_ ago when he started victimising homeless Londoners.'

'Sexual assault isn't exactly our division,' said Anderson.

Sherlock wanted to strangle him, and Lestrade knew it. Fixing Anderson with an authoritative eye, Lestrade pointed to the door and said, 'Step out into the hall, Anderson. Now.'

'Why do you keep defending this prat?' Anderson objected. 'Yeah, I get it, he's ruddy brilliant. Well, he'd have to be, wouldn't he, to fool us all like he's done. That doesn't stop him from being a murderer!' He mustered his courage, poked his head around Lestrade like a small child hiding behind his mother, and pointed a finger at Sherlock. 'You're a psychopath, Holmes. We _know_ you killed Richard Brook. We have damning evidence of the fact. _That's_ why you faked your own death and fled—to save yourself from a lifetime in prison. Well, guess what, mate? There's no statute of limitations in this country, especially not on murder! Showing up again wasn't your best move.'

'You are an utter imbecile,' said Sherlock, 'if you think you understand _anything _of what happened on that day.'

'Oh ho! Tell us, then! You think you're so clever. Where did I go wrong? Brook exposes you as a fraud, so you kill him. Then, in a panic, you _apparently_ fake your own death. So how did you survive? We had two dozen witnesses who saw you fall. How did you do it?'

'It's not _important_. Why don't you focus your limited mental capacity on something that actually matters? Listen to what I am telling you _now_—he's known as the Slash Man on the streets. You want a description, go and ask the people he's raped, the people you haven't given a damn about up until now. Go on, get their stories, now you're so eager to find him. You're the detectives. That's what you _do_.'

'We've got men on it, Sherlock,' said Lestrade.

'Of course. London's _finest_.'

'Now, now, all Anderson is saying is that it'll be easier to move forward once we can interview John. We'll have more to go on. Look, let's not talk about it right now. Not here. I'm sorry, Mrs Hudson, this is entirely inapprop—' He trailed off, his lips caught on the _p_.

'You want my cooperation? It's all yours. Just take Anderson off the case. The witless, thoughtless, brainless—'

'Sherlock—' Lestrade had tensed, looking at a spot just past Sherlock's shoulder. But Sherlock didn't seem to notice and continued:

'He has no business being here anyway as _head of forensics_. I don't know why Donovan has even bothered bringing him, unless they're still shagging.'

'Sherlock.' Molly's voice now, with a ring of caution, but she had no place in this conversation, and he rode over her.

'He'll have _me_ to answer to if he even tries to set foot—'

'_Sherlock._'

He spun to Mycroft, aggravated by the censure, and erupted. '_What?_'

But he noticed, then, that Mycroft, like Lestrade, and like Molly, wasn't looking at him, but at a fixed point that seemed to be just behind him, in the doorway. Mrs Hudson's eyes were locked there, too, and a hand was covering her mouth as her eyes slowly misted. Even Donovan and Anderson were staring. In trepidation, Sherlock glimpsed over his shoulder just enough to notice a figure standing in the doorway, a sight familiar to his periphery, though it had been so long since he had seen it. His heart guttered. He turned completely to face the door.

And there stood John. There, awake, alert, staring at him from across an impassable chasm. Standing. How was it he was _standing_, there, in the doorway, all alone, and looking so small? Ten days of starvation had stripped him of the meat of his chest and the paunch in his belly. His skinny legs, poking like sticks below the hospital gown, looked hardly thick enough to bear him up. Even the flesh of his face and neck had thinned, making him appear at once ten years older and ten years younger. He looked like he might shatter if touched. The dry, chapped skin around his mouth and eyes blotched and reddened his face, and with the swelling having gone down, the bruising was more prominent. The nurses had carefully shaven his face, but also parts of his head where stitching was required, giving him the patchy visage of a mistreated dog. Droplets of blood on his arms showed the places where he had been pricked with the needle, where he had plucked them from his own arms. _How had he—?_ Then Sherlock understood: Despite the excruciating pain, he had pushed his broken body from the bed, escaping the medicine that dulled the pain and the machines that supported his recovery, and left, heading for the stairwell, and _oh god_, he'd been heading for the roof.

But his course had been diverted. Now, he leant heavily on a cane, and this time he needed it. Everything about him spoke of pain, but nothing more so than his eyes, which were rigidly locked on Sherlock.

Silence filled the room to the point of suffocation. The pressure of it swelled like an inflating balloon. Then at last, it was ruptured.

'You're alive,' John said. His voice fitted the state of his body—ragged, rent, and thin.

Sherlock didn't know what to say. It wasn't supposed to happen like this, not like _this_. He parted his lips to explain, but all he could say was, 'John.'

'All this time?' John fingers were as pallid and immovable as white stone around the handle of his cane; at his side, he clenched and unclenched his left fist, all fingers curling inward but the splinted index finger. 'You . . . you never told— If I had known, I . . . I can't—'

The cane wasn't enough. He put out a hand to brace himself against the wall.

'John, you shouldn't be on your feet,' said Lestrade. He stepped forward as though intending to assist John back to his room.

'_No._' John stepped back stiffly, wincing at an unspoken pain. Sherlock saw that he left a patch of red in his wake. John put out a hand to forbid anyone from drawing nearer. At last, he seemed to take in the room, looking at every face but Sherlock's, faces he hadn't seen in years and could scarcely seem to comprehend. 'You knew about this, Greg?' he said, his voice straining. His eyes jumped. 'Mycroft?' They landed on Mrs Hudson, Molly, Donovan, and Anderson. 'You all knew he was . . . Oh, _god_.' His eyes returned to Sherlock, but he couldn't bear to look for too long. He squeezed his eyes closed and bowed his head, hand fisted at his side. His body expressed a hurt that his tongue could not.

Mrs Hudson, in a small, tinny, wounded voice, said, 'I found out only yesterday.'

Lestrade's mobile sounded in his pocket. He silenced it at once.

'John,' said Sherlock, as gently as he knew how, but John's body tensed up at the sound of his name spoken by _that voice_. 'No one—none of them—knew. Not until you were . . . taken.' Then he had to correct himself. 'Except Molly. But I can explain. I can explain everything.'

'But I saw you fall,' said John. 'I _saw you fall!_' He voice broke against the final word and his face twisted in pain. 'I buried you!'

'Forgive me, John.' He was desperate to explain himself, to make John understand. He stepped forward, but John regained himself and stepped back again.

'No,' he said. His eyes shone wet. 'He kept asking me, asking me, again, again, again, and I didn't know. I didn't know! I couldn't tell him and then he— My Mary is dead because of you! If I had known you were alive, I could have saved— She would still be— Oh _god!_ Damn you! God_damn_ you!'

The cane failed him. As it twisted away from his body, John collapsed to his knees in utter defeat, bending over himself with face tucked into the crook of his elbows. His trembling wrists drew together above his head of their own volition, and his shoulders quaked violently. Sherlock was instantly crouched beside him. But when he wrapped fingers around the bony shoulder, meaning to comfort or straighten him, he inadvertently pressed into a tender wound on his back. John gasped hoarsely and wrenched his body away. Sherlock's hand withdrew quickly, as though he had touched a hot iron. But John was still gasping. His hand splayed against his chest.

'He can't breathe!' Sherlock cried.

Donovan rushed from the room.

'Lay him down! Lay him down!' said Lestrade, hovering. 'On the ground!'

Mrs Hudson was crying openly. Molly put her arms around her shoulders to steady her, but her eyes were wide with fear.

Donovan wasn't gone long. The nurses had heard the shouting from down the hall and had come running. Next Sherlock knew, the room was filled with medical personnel and security officers, and he was shuffled backward until he came to stand by Mycroft, who gripped him at the elbow to hold him in place. Somewhere in the far distance, he heard Donovan speaking something into her mobile about security breaches and lockdowns, Lestrade murmuring obscenities as he ran a hand through his hair again and again, and Anderson repeating _what was he thinking, he's mad, what was he thinking?_ But Sherlock's attention was locked on John; his ears were filled with John's excoriating breathing and the doctors' buzzwords: _shock_, and _collapsed lung_, and _sedative_. Soon, John was lifted onto a gurney and an oxygen mask was held to his face. But he fought it. He pushed weakly against the hands that tried to help him until they were forced to hold his arms down. His eyes streamed and looked wildly around the room, as though he didn't know where he was. Then, just as they began to wheel him from the room, his eyes found Sherlock. His body stilled, but his eyes were filled with an unspeakable pain. Then he was gone.

**Sunday, 21.09 hrs**

They refitted the chest tube. They sedated him with drugs. They strapped him into the hospital bed. They let no one in to see him, not even Lestrade.

'They've made him a prisoner,' said Sherlock angrily.

'It's for his own safety,' Mycroft replied. 'He should never have been able to leave the bed, let alone the room.'

'What happened to your air-tight security?' he asked scathingly.

Mycroft pulled a face. 'I've had a little chat with your dear inspector detective. And with my own people. The situation has been rectified. It won't happen again.'

'You need to make it happen again.'

'Pardon?'

'I need to see him.'

'Sherlock—'

'They won't let me anywhere near that room, but I need to see him, Mycroft. I need to explain. I know if I can only _explain_—'

'Don't be foolish. You saw how he reacted to your . . . let's just say it: your existence. After all you've done already . . .'

'He deserves to know _why_.'

'And he will. In time. Good lord, let the man rest! Wait for him to be stronger. Let him recover his senses, at least.' He thought a moment. 'Perhaps it would be better if someone else were to explain it. Someone close to him. Someone he trusts.'

Sherlock winced. 'There's no one, Mycroft. No one.'

**Monday, 02.25 hrs**

_Are you still here?__  
GL_

_Yes.  
MH_

_Is Sherlock with you?  
_

_I haven't seen him  
since around midnight.  
_

_Damn. Text me if you  
hear from him, will you?  
_

_Any new word on John?  
_

_Nothing.  
_

**Monday, 06.18 hrs**

Timing was everything. The perfect moment would come only once. He watched, and waited.

It came in the morning, before sunrise. He had been keeping an eye on 319 from clandestine locations along the hallway (including the men's toilet near the waiting room), monitoring who went in and who went out of the room. A doctor had entered seventeen minutes before. Before he could exit, however, the normally quiet and empty hall came suddenly alive as two new patients—victims of a early morning car crash—were being transported from A&E into intensive care, each gurney surrounded by a team of nurses and doctors.

Timing. He stepped out of the men's toilet and joined them as they hurried down the hallway. Intensely focused on their patients' vital signs, they failed to notice him. Then, just as they were passing 319 (and the security officer who stood guard there) the doctor whom he had watched enter the room was just leaving it. Sherlock stepped away from the nurses and doctors who had been his camouflage and slipped directly into John's room as the door softly swung closed behind him. He had been, in effect, invisible. All told, it had taken him less than ten seconds. Nevertheless, his heart pounded madly in his chest.

The room was quiet, but for the steady beeping of the machines; and dark, but for the glow of monitors and a dim and solitary light fixture in the wall. The orange curtains were pulled only halfway around the bed, but Sherlock had to take two steps to the right before he could see John, who was lying on his back in a partially raised bed. Both arms, once again hooked up to IVs, were in padded restraints at his sides. His head was turned away from the open curtain, away from Sherlock, but as Sherlock drew nearer on the other side, he could tell that John was awake. His eyes were open, and he stared straight ahead as though seeing nothing at all.

Sherlock swallowed hard and came to a stop at the foot of the bed. Then he took a steadying breath. 'John,' he said, gently, hesitantly, as if the very sound of his voice were a razor, and no matter how he wielded it, he was sure to cut.

At first, he doubted that John had heard him. He made no movement, didn't so much as blink. But then, he spoke.

'Please,' he said. Sherlock noticed the glistening edge of John's eye, which threatened to spill over. 'I can't . . . do this.'

'I need you to understand.'

_Cut._

'Leave.'

'I will. I will, just give me a chance to explain first.'

_Slice._

'My Mary is dead.' John said it this time without anger, but with an emptiness that pierced Sherlock even deeper.

'I know.'

_Carve._

'My fault,' said John. He squeezed his eyes tight and turned his head into the pillow.

'Don't. Never say that. It's my fault, John. If I had thought of her only thirty minutes sooner, I would have been there to stop them from taking her. I didn't act fast enough, John. I wasn't there to save her.'

'She wasn't . . . _yours_ to save. You didn't know her.'

He took a tentative step closer and resisted the urge to reach out a hand and touch John's arm. 'I knew some things. I knew she liked to work with her hands. She made the curtains in your sitting room and in the kitchen, and she painted the walls herself. She was a gardener—the miniscule scars of rosebush scratches on the backs of her hands are quite inimitable—and cared for the growth of small things. She liked Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell and read their works over and over again, judging by the dog-eared state of the books on her shelf, and had a predilection for Tchaikovsky and ballet, given her CD collection and the shape of her feet. She loved Stonehenge—'

'_Stop it_,' said John angrily. His head came around, and he glared through the mist. 'You. Didn't. _Know_ her.'

Sherlock bowed his head, penitent. He took a step back. 'You're right. I didn't. I'm sorry.'

This wasn't going well at all. Mycroft was right: it wasn't the right time. He wasn't just being foolish; he was being cruel. 'I'll— I'll go,' he said weakly.

'Why?' said John, trying to lift his eyes, but he couldn't quite meet Sherlock's.

'Why?' Sherlock echoed.

'How is it,' said John, 'that you're alive? I watched you die.'

'You saw what I . . . needed you to see.'

John lifted a hand, meaning to wipe the fallen tears from his cheek, only to rediscover the restraint. He would have to abide the tears. 'I don't understand. He made you. He made you.'

Sherlock recalled the last words John ever wrote on the blog that made him famous. _I'll always believe in him_. And something Lestrade had told him, after Sherlock had lamented John's believing his every word, even the false ones, the one meant to protect him: _He didn't believe every lie. He _never_ believed you were a fake._ If that were true, John would have reasoned it out that the only cause for Sherlock's seeming suicide had been coercion. And the author of that coercion? Moriarty.

'Yes,' said Sherlock. 'He did.'

'How?'

Sherlock dared to step close once more. 'I can explain everything. All of it. Do you want me to?'

For a long, tense moment, John didn't answer. Then he nodded, just once, a subtle motion of the head, but he still couldn't look at him.

He spoke slowly, like he was shaping his mouth around a new language, weighing each word in his mind before tasting it on his tongue. 'Moriarty,' he began. 'Of course. That's where all the trouble started. He invented Richard Brook to destroy me, as you know, but I didn't know how far he would take it, or how quickly. The game was to discredit me entirely, all in one night. He began with the Bruhl kidnapping. You were there, you saw how he got suspicion to fall to me. Everyone believed it, too. Donovan, of course, and even Lestrade—'

'Not me.'

'No. Not you.' Sherlock looked at him tenderly, but John had turned his head away again and didn't see. 'That was . . .' He sighed. 'That was part of the problem. It made _you_ a target.'

'I don't understand.'

'The pieces of the jigsaw were beginning to fit together for me, rapidly, when we encountered _Richard Brook_ in Kitty Riley's flat. Then he, _Richard Brook_, fled, and you and I were back on the street. Suddenly, I could see the whole picture, the comprehensiveness of his plan. I told you then that he needed only one more thing, _one more thing_, to complete his masterpiece. For the world to believe I was a fraud, he needed me dead, unable to speak, defend myself, or unmask him. But more than that. He needed me to die by my own hand. A suicide. That would seal it in everyone's mind: Sherlock Holmes, exposed and defamed, takes own life to avoid public humiliation. But Moriarty was a clever man, like me, and he knew he couldn't simply talk me into it. He needed leverage, and only one thing was bound to work against me. You.'

He noticed that John's fists were balled, but he was otherwise unreadable. What he was thinking of all of this, Sherlock couldn't tell. Afraid to ask, he continued.

'That's why I left you, then. As long as you were at my side, you were at risk, but I knew you would only argue with me if I tried to explain that. Moriarty was going to do whatever he had to in order to make sure I committed suicide. But I didn't want to die, John. Call it selfishness, call it cowardice, or maybe just human impulse, but I didn't want to die. So my best chance was to make him believe I had, if it came to it, if I couldn't find a way out on my own. Then I would have the element of surprise on my side when I hunted him down. Him and his people, though at the time I had no idea just how vast that population was. But you have to understand: it was a last resort, a precautionary measure I hoped never to have to use. All the same, it had to be perfectly planned, or it would never work.

'So I went to Molly. She was perfectly situated in talent and anonymity, the only person I trusted who was capable of helping me fake my own death, if she followed my instructions carefully. I could control everything: where, when, how. Still, I held to the hope that I could defeat Moriarty without her. I thought I could do it all on my own. That's always been one of my greater failings.

'You found me in the lab, and something you did in there made me hopeful that I could in fact beat him at his own game. Your fingers tapping on the counter reminded me of something Moriarty had done in our flat—a key code. I didn't realise it was a red herring, Moriarty playing my own of love of shrewdness against me. But I believed, then, that I had something to use against him. The game was in my pocket. All I had to do was face him. But if I had any chance of beating him, I couldn't give him the opportunity to use you against me, because I knew it would work. I also knew that you would never willingly leave my side, not even if I begged or threatened or insulted or reasoned with you. That's why I had Molly call your mobile, masquerading as an A&E nurse, to tell you that Mrs Hudson had been shot. Nothing else would have gotten you to leave me. I could have the whole thing sorted by the time you learnt that I had lied to you. So believing you were safe from him, I texted Moriarty and arranged to meet him on the roof. If things went badly, I would have to execute my plan and fall. But my hope was to defeat him first and then go find you.'

Sherlock realised, then, that he was pacing and gesticulating fervently, his talking pace rapid once again. It was the first time, since that day, that he had allowed himself to so fully relive all that had happened, and he wanted John to understand—_needed _him to understand—why he had done all he had done. He forced himself to slow down.

'I met him there, on the roof, and played dumb about what it was he expected me to do. But I had underestimated him by overestimating his love of the complex. His plan hadn't been complex at all. There had been no key code. He had broken into the Tower of London, the bank, the prison, all on _bribery_. And he didn't need you on the roof with me to use you against me. He told me that, unless his people saw me jump, he would kill all of my friends: Mrs Hudson, Lestrade . . . and you. Three snipers. I admit, I had not been expecting it. But I still trusted in my own mental prowess that I could in some way talk Moriarty into calling them off. But he was insane, John. Nothing was more important to him than the sure knowledge that I would be defeated at his hand. So to ensure that I had to jump, he took himself—the only one capable of stopping the snipers—out of the picture. He must have known that his great and terrible work would continue in the hands of others. But it was my own ruination that was his masterpiece. So he shook my hand, put a gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

'It was then I knew it—nothing could save you, all of you, except my death. He had won. I was going to jump. His people needed to see it, and believe it, or you were sure to die. I stepped to the edge of the roof. That's when I saw you step out of the taxi. The way you were running, I knew you were in a panic. You knew by then that I had sent you away deliberately, and probably that I was in danger. So there was one more thing I had to do. You needed to see me fall. As I had discussed with Molly, there would be no body to identify after the fact, and you wouldn't necessarily trust the testimonies of the eyewitnesses I had set in place. You needed to see me fall yourself, or you would never fully believe I was dead. So I made you stand there and watch. I tried to convince you that I was a fake, to give credence to my fall but also to make you hate me. I thought it might . . . be easier, that way. But when you refused to believe it . . . I knew you were a better friend than I deserved. When I said goodbye, I believed I would never get to explain that to you. And I fell.'

He explained everything then, how he had survived the fall, how he had deceived John on the ground, how Molly had so perfectly played her part. And no one knew. Not one soul. And Sherlock left England.

'Three years,' said John quietly. 'You've been lying to me for more than three years. Molly's been lying to me. Mycroft—'

'Didn't know,' Sherlock said forcefully. 'I swear to you, no one, not Lestrade, not Mycroft, no one but Molly knew I was alive. For all intents and purposes, I had died that day.'

'You hadn't. You could have come back.'

'I couldn't, John. Not if it would jeopardise you and the others again. As long as I stayed dead, they would have no reason—'

'A note. Some word. Anything.'

'You would have come after me. Besides, it wouldn't have been fair to you, my return. I believed that, in time, you would be . . . fine. You would move on.'

John was shaking his head again. 'I wasn't fine. I was never _fine._' His arms strained against the straps.

There was a loud pause, and the silence was an aching pressure against their ears. 'Nor was I,' said Sherlock. 'But I didn't know what else to do.'

John frowned deeply. He looked off to the side, breathing hard, fighting to remain in control. 'Where were you?' he asked next.

Sherlock spoke of disappearing first to France, changing his name and appearance everywhere he went. He gave a brief history of being constantly on the move, tracking down and destroying Moriarty's vast network thread by thread, unable and unwilling to settle, through Eastern Europe and into Asia, Australia, Africa. When he arrived in Libya in his narrative, he hesitated, saying only, 'I was seen by someone I had once known.'

'Irene Adler,' John supplied. At Sherlock's stiff nod, he said, 'He told me you had saved her. I didn't believe him.'

'I made a mistake, not telling you. But I made a larger one, trusting her.'

He proceeded to explain his gravest error yet in telling her that _one person knew_, and how she had incorrectly deduced that that one person was John.

'I had figured that she had retained Moriarty's services, that once. Used him as a consulting criminal, like the others had. I never knew she had deeper connections to his network. So when she told the likes of Sebastian Moran'—John flinched, ever so slightly at the name, and Sherlock resolved to be more judicious in his naming the man in the future—'that I was alive, and that someone knew it . . .'

John nodded, understanding.

'I came back only when I learnt you were missing. It was Moriarty all over again, though I didn't know it at the time. I hadn't known that she told anyone about me, so I hadn't guessed it, that someone would take you.'

'To get to _you_.'

Sherlock sighed, bone weary and despising himself. 'Yes.'

'That's why Mary died. Because of what I was to you.'

_What you _are_ to me_, Sherlock thought. 'I'm so sorry, John,' he said one more time.

John continued to look away, his sadness so profound that Sherlock felt it weighing down his own heart. John could never forgive him. He knew it, and he would not fight for it. It would be inhuman, and deeply unfair, to expect anything but hatred from John now, after all he had done.

'I just needed . . . No. _You_ deserved the truth of it. All of it. Though I know it's not enough to . . . It can never . . .'

He left the thought unfinished. These were words, just words. Meaningless, worthless. And yet, how deeply they cut, each syllable, each consonant. He waited for John to say something, anything. To call him inhuman and gutless, inglorious and degenerate. To scream his hate and fury and lash him with every merited abuse. But John was done talking. And Sherlock understood. He would leave. He would not impose himself on John again. And until—unless—John asked him to, he would not come back.


	26. Chapter 26: Grey Clouds over London

**Chapter 26: Grey Clouds over London**

**DAYS ONWARD**

When night passed, the dawn was imperceptible, hidden behind the grey gauze of Scotch mist and London fog. Alone in the morgue, Molly Hooper checked her watch and made some final notes on her clipboard regarding the draped body on the table. Finished, she checked her watch and noted the hour, her eyes flitting once again to the double doors.

She was used to being alone down here, just as she was used to handling corpses and running labs on her own. Years and years of working as a mortuary attendant had conditioned her to numbness at seeing disfigured faces, innards ravaged by disease, and skin broken by animal bites, human fists, and weapons of every sort. It didn't bother her, as a matter of course; that is, it didn't debilitate her. Not anymore. After those first couple of emotionally stressful years, she had become rather good at detaching herself from the horror of death without sacrificing her innate compassion.

Today, however, with what this particular body represented, she hated her job, every part. The lingering smell of formaldehyde, the 13-degree room temperature on her skin, the starkness of the walls and the glaring of the bright fluorescent bulbs. But especially, she hated being the only thing living among so many dead.

Then the door opened, and Greg Lestrade came into the room.

He had been out in the drizzle, and his gray hair was darkened with water, resting flat against his head. The sleeves of his coat were dampened and the front lightly spotted with raindrops. His slumped shoulders gave him the look of a man bearing a heavy burden, and his eyes were greyed with fatigue. But when he saw her, he smiled, and his entire countenance brightened in defiance of everything that tried to drag him down.

'Morning,' he said, sniffing from the wet and cold.

'Morning,' she returned, shyly tucking a loose strand of hair behind one ear. 'Still raining, is it?'

'Not letting up anytime soon,' he said. 'Forecast is all storms.'

He crossed the room and came to a stop on the opposite side of the table bearing the dead body. How many times had they stood like this, on either side, a corpse between them? It was familiar, but their respective positioning felt different today, as though something had . . . shifted. Looking at her from the abbreviated distance, he opened his mouth to say something, but he seemed to think better of it. His eyes dropped to the slab.

'Positive identification?' he asked.

She swallowed and turned to her clipboard. 'His name was Hugh Freemont,' she read. 'We put time of death around midnight Wednesday night, but we can't be too precise. The body spent several hours in the Thames, which was at near-freezing temperatures, before washing ashore. Bloating and low temperatures slow down decomposition, making it more difficult to pinpoint time of death.'

Lestrade was nodding and consulting his notes. 'Wednesday night fits my timeline. Mary's body was recovered earlier that day, and then the photos were sent. By then, Burch and Moore had already begun to fret over their involvement with John's disappearance, and those two events together made them realise the gravity of it all. They panicked.'

'So why kill Mr Freemont?'

'To end the Yard's search altogether. If we had a body positively identified as John Watson, we wouldn't need to look any further, and the real John would never be found. I'm guessing Mr Freemont is a physical near-match?'

Molly read from the clipboard. 'Height, 170.26 centimetres; weight, 65.8 kilograms; age, 39; hair colour, dark blond; eye colour, blue. All measurements are comparable with John's, down to his general physique.'

'Poor bugger,' said Lestrade. 'Murdered because of unfortunate similarities. If you were able to identify him, he must be in the system. Fingerprints?'

'The skin of his fingertips had been scorched or sliced off,' she said. 'And his mouth had been bashed in to destroy his teeth. But we matched his DNA. It's on file.'

'What for?'

'Sgt Donovan said he'd served two years for illegal narcotics possession and was released eight months ago. Since then, he'd been living on the streets.'

'Moore used to work narcotics.' Lestrade snorted and shook his head in derision. 'Probably put the guy away, knew he'd been released, and had him in mind the whole time. And who would know if some homeless man went missing? So just kill the lonely sod, name him John Watson, and create a false resolution to a kidnapping crime while simultaneously covering up the greater conspiracy.' He huffed and said with a sardonic bite, 'Clever.'

'Not so clever,' said Molly. 'The ruse couldn't last, even if the DNA results had been falsified positive for John.'

'Oh?' He looked at her, intrigued.

She reached for the blanket draped over the body, but her fingers paused on the edge of the cloth. 'Shall I show you?'

'Please.'

She lifted the cloth and folded it down at the cadaver's waist. 'Mr Freemont's killers went to great lengths to recreate a body as damaged as the one they had seen in the photographs, but it's hard to inflict exactly the same injuries. The bruising patterns don't match, either in placement or size.' She pointed with latex-gloved fingers to bruising around the neck. 'John was strangled with a leather belt, but this was done with a rope. You can see where the fibres have scratched the skin. We've determined this to be the most likely cause of death: asphyxiation by strangulation. In fact, this is probably one of the first things they did to him.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because of all the lacerations. The replicated marks on his back, the puncture wounds in his neck, the cuts at the wrist—they were all made post-mortem. Additionally, the cuts on the wrist were made with a knife, not wire, and not a very sharp knife, either. And there are clear signs of hesitation in the cuts on his back, unlike what the photographs revealed. Furthermore, they were all made at once, not over the course of days. As a replication of a crime, it was sloppy work. Any medical examiner worth his salt would have spotted the differences between this body and the photographs of John alive.'

Lestrade couldn't help but smile at her admiringly over the dead body of the sorry victim. 'You're a right Sherlock Holmes, Ms Hooper.'

She blushed at the exaggeration. It was far from true, it was all in the training, but she liked the warmth in his voice as he praised her. There was no higher compliment, after all, and Molly wasn't used to those.

'Speaking of,' continued Lestrade, 'I don't suppose he's been down here? Does he know about . . . this?' He indicated the body with a nod.

She shook her head. 'He won't leave the third floor,' she replied. 'Not unless Mrs Hudson drags him away. He can't seem to resist her, like he does everyone else.'

'Then he's been back to see . . . ?'

But Molly was shaking her head even before he finished the question. 'No. John, he—he hasn't asked for him.'

'Ah.' Lestrade looked down at his feet where his coat was dripping water.

'To be fair, though,' continued Molly, 'he's heavily drugged and not often conscious, so . . .'

'Right. Of course. He needs the rest. Every minute he can get. And let's face it. Sherlock has never been one to inspire tranquillity.' He smiled tightly. 'I need to go find him. I've been putting it off, but he and I need to talk.'

'I'll send this report on to your office, shall I?'

'Yes, thank you.'

It was the moment in the conversation when he should have been taking steps toward the door, trailing an informal farewell with glances over his shoulder and a customary lift of the hand. But he didn't even rock back on his heels, his hands remained in his pockets, and his eyes didn't break away from hers. He was no longer smiling.

She felt the colour rise in her cheeks. But she said nothing. She had been wrong before.

'Listen, Molly,' he said. 'I don't know how to say this delicately, so I'll just come straight to it.' She felt her stomach turn a cartwheel and she stood a little straighter. Then he finished: 'I think you should move.'

'What?' she asked, startled.

'That little flat of yours, tucked away down that dark little street. I don't like it. I know the sorts of things that go on in dark little streets like that, and I don't like the thought of you being . . . being there on your own.'

'I've been there for six years,' she said. 'It's not much, but the price is right. Finding affordable flats in nicer parts of the city, well, it's not so easy—'

'That's why I've brought you this.' He withdrew from his pocket a slip of paper, on which he had written a name, phone number, and address. 'I know a guy. Owes me a favour. It's a quiet little place in Central London, halfway between Barts and Baker Street, right near the Circle and District Lines. Won't cost you even a pound over what you're spending now.' He passed her the slip. 'Let me take you by there sometime today. You can get a sense of it.'

She noted the address. 'Not too far from the Yard,' she commented.

'I could wrangle together some of the boys and have you moved in by the weekend.'

'Greg,' she said, almost at a loss for words, 'what's this about?'

At last, he slowly stepped around the body of Hugh Freemont and closed the distance between them. When he spoke next, his voice was low and tense. 'John wasn't keeping Sherlock's secret all those months. You were.'

Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. 'No one knows that,' she said in a near-whisper.

'Some of us do. I don't mean to frighten you, Molly, but the reality is, if _they_ had known it, it might be you in that hospital bed. Maybe the danger is passed, maybe not, but I'm not taking any risks with the people Sherlock cares about, so the first step is moving you somewhere safer, well lit, and where I can get to you at a moment's notice.'

She exhaled slowly, looking at the slip pinched between her fingers.

'Then, we proof your new home against possible intruders. Double bolts on the doors, the windows, an alert system, all that. And no cabbies to and from work. Ride the Tube during the day, and if you need to get somewhere past peak hours, you just give me a call, and I'll be there in seconds flat. And if I can't, I'll send someone you know. If you hear something, or see something, even if you just _feel _that something isn't quite right—'

'Greg—' she protested.

'—I'm there. Day or night, or that golden line in between.'

'You'll turn me paranoid, jumping at my own shadows,' she said, trying to insert a laugh, and failing.

'Just until we get to the bottom of this. And I promise you, Molly, we will. I won't let anything happen to you.'

She grinned her thin-lipped grin and looked up at him again. 'And after all that? When it's all over, and I'm alone in my new flat, and something goes bump in the night?'

'I'm there.' The corner of his lip twitched. 'I mean, I'll be there. That is, when you call, when_ever_ you call . . .'

'You may grow weary of me,' she quipped.

'I doubt it.'

When had he drawn so close? Molly was sure neither of them had moved since his coming around the table, but now they were almost toe to toe, and she had to tilt her head back to see him properly. And then, an insane urge to flatten his lapels and brush the droplets from his fringe.

'Then I'll call,' she said quietly, as there was no need to speak at normal volumes, not when they could hear one another's inhalations, exhalations. 'Thank you.'

He seemed just to realise their proximity, and the colour in his face darkened to match hers. Embarrassed, he took a step back. 'I should—' He laughed awkwardly, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. 'I should go find Sherlock. Molly. All you've done, for Sherlock and for John, it's been . . . Without you, none of us would have ever . . . You're an amazing woman, Molly Hooper.'

His warm words left her nonplussed—her mouth fell open, but nothing came out.

He smiled and put his hand on the door.

'We should do coffee!' she burst. He started and turned back to her. 'I mean . . . Sorry, what I meant to say is . . .'

'Drinks,' he said. 'Tonight. First, your new flat, and then . . . Drinks?'

She nodded rapidly.

His smile was so large it crinkled his eyes. 'All right then. We'll start with that.'

* * *

Lestrade found Sherlock slowly pacing the third floor hallway with an eye to 319. He chided his fluttering heart and returned to that more familiar mode: that of detective inspector.

'That's enough, Sherlock,' he said. 'Follow me.'

To his surprise, Sherlock didn't protest but cast one more glance at the security officer before following Lestrade down the hallway and into a lift where Lestrade punched a button for the ground floor. When the lift doors closed, he asked, 'Anything new?'

'You saw him last,' said Sherlock tonelessly.

That was true, and that had been yesterday, John's fourth day in hospital. The visit had been brief and tense. All the incomprehensible energy that John had exuded to force himself from the bed and down the hallway on his own had drained him once again, and he could scarcely lift his head anymore. Lestrade himself didn't know how to start. He couldn't very well ask John how he was feeling or tell him how good it was to see him or offer to get him anything. He couldn't really tell, either, how John felt about his being there. John's eyes followed him, but they were empty of sentiment and otherwise unreadable. Maybe it was the glazed look brought on by the drugs. Maybe it was the look of the haunted. Whatever the expression, it did not invite pity or well wishes, so Lestrade got straight to the point.

'We found you in a condemned convent in the East End,' he said. John didn't so much as blink. 'Two of your abductors are dead, but we're still looking for the others. All I need from you right now, John, is to confirm the identity of those two men who fled. I'm going to show you two photographs. You just have to say yes or no. Can you do that?'

John nodded once.

Lestrade brought out the two photographs. The first was a military photo of Colonel Sebastian Moran, which Mycroft Holmes had provided. It was a few years old, but their more current shots had been taken from security cameras scattered around the globe, capturing poor-quality and badly angled stills of the rogue soldier. The older photo would serve for his purposes.

The second was of a man named Darren Hirsch, former corporal in the Royal Marines. After his dishonourable discharge, Hirsch had disappeared from any records, though rumour was he had returned to his native London. Keeping with the familiar profile of ex-military and dispossessed males, Lestrade and his team had narrowed possible suspects to three different Darrens; then Lestrade matched one of them by body type to the man he had seen in the video. Mycroft confirmed that Hirsch was on the same watch list as the others. Still, he couldn't be certain of the man, not without John's positive identification.

He showed the photograph of Moran first. 'Do you recognise this man?' he asked gently. 'Was he one of your abductors?'

John stared a long moment at the photograph held up to his face; then he closed his eyes and nodded.

'Sebastian Moran,' said Lestrade. 'Forty-two, ex-military, expatriate—' He didn't know why he was saying these things, so he stopped. John didn't need to know the man's biography. He pulled out the second photograph and held it up, watching John's face expectantly.

Again, John stared, but now his eyes smouldered. After a moment, he looked away.

The reaction seemed to be confirmation enough, but Lestrade had to ask. 'Was this one of the men who held you?'

John breathed. He parted his lips. 'Daz,' he said.

'Yes,' said Lestrade, putting the photograph away so John wouldn't have to see it anymore. 'His full name is Darren Phillip Hirsch. He's been wanted for some time.' Again, he stopped himself from saying more. Surely, John didn't want to hear it. And he wouldn't ask any more questions. Soon, but not today. He would let John rest. 'We'll get them, John,' he said, though he had never felt words were more hollow. He started for the door when he heard John speak again.

'Where is she?'

He turned back. 'Who?'

'Mary.'

For a heart-stopping moment, Lestrade feared that John didn't remember, that the painkillers were confusing his mind or the trauma had affected his memory. But a second later, John proved that he was suffering no delusion.

'You found her,' he said, a supposition and a question all at once. 'Her body.'

'Yes.' He prayed John wouldn't ask where. 'We found her, John.'

'Can I see her?'

Lestrade exhaled slowly. 'Mary's body was released to her sister this morning. She's taking her back to Calgary.' _I'm sorry, John, I'm so sorry_, Lestrade wanted to say, but he couldn't. Mary had been taken away from him again, across an ocean, to be buried in foreign soil. How could words make that right? From what the nurses had told him, Samantha Hillock had been by to see John, but he had been unconscious. She didn't stay long and kept apologising to anyone who would listen: _I just want to leave. I have to put my sister in the ground._

John's fingers curled into the hospital blanket, and he turned his head to the faraway window. Lestrade stood frozen, feeling it would be insensitive to leave, feeling it was unkind to stay. At last, he willed his feet to turn him once again to the door.

'Is he still here?'

Lestrade didn't have to ask for clarification this time. 'Yes,' he said. 'Do you— Shall I go get him?'

Another long silence passed.

'No.'

Now he stood in a quiet lift with Sherlock. When he was finished with him, maybe he would try to convince him to leave Barts and go back to his place for a shower and a shave, and maybe a proper sleep. He looked worse for wear, with bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair, and wearing the same shirt for the third day in a row, not at all his usual put-together self. He was a man without a plan, waiting for the world to begin turning again but with no real hope that it would.

'Through here,' said Lestrade. He had led him to the other end of the hospital and into an small, unused conference room and indicated that they should both sit. When Sherlock had settled, Lestrade pulled out a digital voice recorder and laid it on the table. But he didn't turn it on.

'John positively ID'd Moran and Hirsch,' he said. 'I'll get his full testimony later, but in the meantime, we're not sitting on our hands. So Sherlock. I need to know.'

Sherlock waited for the question.

'Why did you leave John at the foot of the stair?'

'I have already told you, inspector.'

From Sherlock, those words would normally have been tinged with annoyance, but this time they lacked any venom.

'I knew you were just above me. You were sure to find him.'

'Sherlock, you left him unconscious and bleeding out. And it's not like you needed to hide from _me_.' He looked at him gravely. 'You were still protecting him, weren't you? What was the danger? Or rather, _who_ was it? Moran or Hirsch?'

It appeared as though Sherlock wasn't going to answer. But then he seemed to realise that Lestrade wouldn't let this one go. 'I never saw Hirsch. It was Moran. He had his gun on us both. On me and John. I knew that if I could draw him away, John might stand a chance.'

Lestrade nodded stiffly. 'How did you do it?'

'I goaded him. Stoked his anger and directed it toward myself, where it belonged. And I ran. If he had shot me dead, there, in the corridor, John would follow. Or you. So I made him pursue _me_. I drew him away long enough for you to reach him, for the police to arrive, and an ambulance.'

'What happened with Moran?' Lestrade pressed. Any other man who didn't want to answer would look away; not Sherlock Holmes. His eyes bored into Lestrade's as if to say _do not ask this; back away_. But Lestrade did not back down. 'I need to know, Sherlock, whether I'm chasing after a dead man.'

Sherlock's eyes jumped to the recorder and its dark bulb, surely wondering why Lestrade hadn't hit the record button. 'No. He's alive. God help me.'

'Tell me.'

* * *

_The gun exploded, and the rock in the wall flew like shrapnel, but Sherlock was already running. A cry of rage, the pounding of feet. Three seconds. He had three seconds to make it to the nearest stairwell before Moran rounded the corner, took aim, and fired again. Two things he had on his side: Moran was injured and losing blood, which would slow him, and Sherlock wasn't entirely unarmed—he had the knife. A blade against a bullet was like cat against a lion. But he also had a brain._

_Sherlock rounded into the stairwell, taking the steps two and three at a time, until he emerged into a long corridor and into moonlight. A dark form lay at a distance, unmoving. Dead, most likely. Sherlock hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. Continue up? Or try to run outside? He didn't know the layout of the upper floors, and Moran likely did, but surely there were more places to hide, more ways to evade the pursuer. But that wasn't really the point. The point was to draw him away from John, and remaining in the convent felt too near. He would race to the grounds, even though he knew they were flooded with moonlight, even though the gates were chained and the wall was not easily surmountable. He broke right and ran, listening to the echo of Moran's footsteps racing up the stairs._

_But when he achieved the grounds, he saw the long stretch of dead lawn and knew he would never make it to the wall. Moran was, after all, a marksman, and a black figure against the moon-white grounds was as good a target as any, no matter how fast he ran. So he threw himself against the side of the building beside the exit, repositioned the knife in his right hand, and waited._

_Three . . . two . . . one!_

_Moran burst from the open door, and Sherlock sprang at his back. His knife missed its target, that slot between the ribs, and struck Moran lower; he felt the tip of the knife glance off the hipbone._

_Next he knew, Sherlock was on the ground. At the insertion of the knife, Moran had hollered in pain and fury, and before Sherlock could throw an arm around his neck and wrestle him to the ground, something solid collided with the side of his head, against his already bleeding gash. Now, Moran stood above him, panting hard, and pulled the knife slowly from his hip. Sherlock scrambled backward like a crab even as Moran tossed the knife away. He flipped himself over, to knees, to feet, and began to run again, futilely fleeing the maniac with the gun._

_But Moran wasn't shooting. A bullet in the back was too good for Sherlock Holmes. He chased him, and when he had closed the distance, he drove him once again to the ground. Sherlock felt the punches land and his bones judder. His mouth filled with dirt and mixed with blood. Then, the jolt—fifty thousand volts from the taser. His muscles contracted erratically. Slowly, the spasms passed, but as he gained control over his body again and tried to roll, he felt the taser ram against his ribs and shock him again. His jaw snapped hard into his tongue and drew blood. At last, he was kicked onto his back, straddled, and something cold and metal was inserted into his mouth._

_'Here, at last,' said Moran above him, trembling with delight as his finger curled around the trigger. 'I owe you. Dead man.'_

_'Enough, Seb.'_

_Everything froze. Sherlock, unable to turn his head to the sound of the voice because of the gun anchored between his teeth, stared at the sheen of blood pouring from the gash across Moran's nose and cheeks. It dripped off his chin and splashed against Sherlock's brow. Moran's finger rested against the trigger of the gun, his whole body was rigid, but he didn't fire._

_The voice spoke again. 'That'll do, Seb, now get off him.'_

_Instead, Moran's free hand—the one not fisted around the handle of a gun—found purchase around Sherlock's throat. He pressed and squeezed, his eyes wild with murderous rage. 'Dead man,' he spluttered, blood spraying from his lips. 'You're a fucking dead man, Holmes.'_

_His wind passage felt like it would collapse beneath the pressure, and his lungs began to burn. He wrapped two hands around Moran's arm and tried to dislodge it from around his neck. But the man, despite his injuries, was too strong._

_Then, the light click as the slide on a gun was drawn back. A warning._

_The pistol withdrew from Sherlock's mouth; the pressure was removed from his throat, and the weight lifted._

_'Get him up. On his knees will do.'_

_'I'm killing him,' said Moran. 'I'm fucking killing him.'_

_'On his knees. Now.' The voice was serene but uncompromising, and in the next moment it was obeyed. Sherlock was lifted by the front of his shirt and set on his knees. At last, he lifted his head and locked eyes with the woman, she who had lit the match and set it against the fuse._

_'Mr Holmes,' she said. 'Welcome home.'_

_In a black trench-style coat with belted waist, long leather gloves, and hard leather boots to the knee that shone in the moonlight, she looked like she had never left London. Her lips were painted deep red, her eyes framed with darkened lashes. In her hands, she carried a precision small arms 25-caliber semiautomatic, gold-plated, which was levelled at Sherlock; her smile teased; but weapon or no weapon, everything about her threatened destruction._

_Behind her, a car was rolling to a stop, headlights dark._

_'Seb, dear, get in the car,' she said. 'You look dreadful.'_

_'Irene—' The edge of Moran's pistol brushed against Sherlock's temple where he waited on his knees for the execution._

_She took a step forward. 'No worries, love. The game isn't over. Not tonight. I'm just evening the score.'_

_But still, he hesitated, unwilling to let her frustrate his purpose and undo all his work with a single command. 'He _killed_ Jim Moriarty. Fucking killed him!'_

_'Yes. And he should suffer for it. And for other things, beside.'_

_Moran pressed the Browning into the wound in the side of Sherlock's head, digging the tip into the broken skin._

_'Dead men don't suffer, Sebastian. That's not the way to wreck a man. You know that. Now put down the gun.'_

_Not a muscle in Moran's whole body twitched._

_She lifted the gun and changed her aim, now directing it at Moran. 'Give me Sherlock,' she said, 'and I'll leave you John.'_

_Sherlock flinched so violently the gun kicked back in Moran's hands._

_Her lips curled upward at this reaction, and she continued to Moran, 'I know how much you've enjoyed him.'_

_'Johnny boy,' said Moran with sudden relish. 'Forget it, Irene. Any way you slice it, he's already mine.' His moment of hesitation was over. His finger moved on the trigger._

_For the second time in his life, Sherlock heard a gun explode in his ear, and he thought he was dead. But even as the dirt erupted near his knees, he heard Moran scream in fury. The man stumbled backward, arm suddenly slack, the gun dangling from a crooked finger. She had fired the semiautomatic, striking hot lead through Moran's upper arm like a spike._

_'Another move like that, Sebastian, and I fire again, and you'll take the next one in the head.'_

_Moran squeezed his arm, blood seeping between his fingers._

_'Now get into the car before you bleed out. And I promise you: Mr Holmes' misery is only just beginning.'_

_At last, Moran moved. He held the gun loosely at his side, took one step, but in the end he couldn't stand it. With his other hand, he whipped around and backhanded Sherlock across the face with a resounding crack. This time, the woman did nothing to stop him. Then Moran retreated to the car, but he remained outside of it, watching._

_Tutting, she took another step closer to Sherlock. His vision clouded as his head swam in anger and hatred, every particle of her a target of loathing._

_'There now,' she said, as unfussy as if they had happened into one another in a corner cafe. 'I've found you at last. I suspected Mr Moran would find a way to draw you out of your foxhole. All I wanted, really, was to bring you home. And here you are. Right where I know I can always find you. You won't run again, will you, Mr Holmes?'_

_He wanted to break her neck. Instead, he said,'Why John?'_

_Her eyebrows rose. 'Now don't give me that look, Sherlock. _You_ made him a liability, not me.' She ran her gloved fingers into his hair, seized it in her fist, and tilted his head back. 'Oh, the lengths you'll go for him. I didn't realise it was so reciprocal. It's sweet, really. Did you expect to die for him tonight? Again?'_

_'Get on with it. Kill me and be done.' His eyes shot past her to Moran, whose loose finger twitched on the trigger._

_'Sebby was mistaken. He doesn't get that privilege. You're mine, Sherlock Holmes. All mine.'_

_'So do it.'_

_She tsked. 'Not tonight. _Tonight_, I'm returning a favour.'_

_'What favour?'_

_'You saved my life, now I'm saving yours. You see it now, don't you? I want us matched in every way. No more debts. No more favours. Now, just passion. A love for the game. And I've never met a better player.'_

_Sherlock's ears suddenly perked up: in the distance, sirens. Irene Adler heard them, too. She released her grip on his head, and grinned. 'Once again, Sherlock Holmes, it's been a pleasure.'_

_Moran opened the car door. 'Until our anniversary, my dear,' she said. 'I'm planning you a big surprise.'_

_Then she disappeared inside._

_Moran did not follow immediately. He glared at Sherlock, a face warped by abhorrence and gore, his arm and leg dripping blood. Then, unexpectedly, he smirked. 'We're not done, Holmes.' He looked back to the convent. 'He and I. We're nowhere near done. Tell him, won't you?'_

* * *

'Then they were gone. I hid in the shadows by the wall as the police cars pulled into the drive,' said Sherlock, 'then I slipped away behind them, through the open gate. I was covered in Moran's blood, and bleeding myself. So I found a homeless man and traded my shoes and coat for a new shirt and the flat cap. Tried to clean myself up. Then I made my way to Barts.'

Lestrade sat back in his chair, stunned, and tried to turn everything over in his head. He had heard the name Irene Adler before, he thought, but in what capacity he couldn't remember. Apparently, she and Sherlock had some sort of history of which he wasn't aware.

'Moran will be badly scarred,' Sherlock continued. 'He'll keep in hiding, for a while, at least, and stay out of the public eye.'

'But he still wants John.'

'He still wants John.'

'Christ, Sherlock, why didn't you tell me all this sooner? We should have people out there looking for a scarred man!'

'Mycroft has,' said Sherlock. 'I told him everything. He's looking for them both.' He shook his head. 'But he won't find them. Ms Adler is well practiced in the art of disappearing.'

'What did she mean by "anniversary"? When do you suppose—?'

'I don't know. It could mean a lot of things. The day we first met, the day I found her in Karachi, maybe even Libya, I don't know. I attached no significance to any date, though, apparently, she did.'

'And this is all just some _game_ to her?'

'Of Moriarty's design. He set the board, and placed her on one side and me on the other. He would have thought it a laugh.'

'My god.'

'Everyone else? Just chess pieces to move around the board. That's how she used Moran. That's how she sees John. Chess pieces.'

Lestrade scrubbed a hand across his eyes. 'So what do we do?'

'I play the game. What else can be done?'

'What does that even mean, "play the game"? This is no game, Sherlock. There are lives at stake.'

'Human lives,' said Sherlock softly. 'I know. That's what I'm playing for.' He tapped a finger on the digital voice recorder. 'Are you going to tell me why you brought this?'

With a sigh, Lestrade picked it up. He had believed, or at least suspected, that Sherlock had killed Moran, that his body was at the bottom of the Thames or stuffed into a crawlspace in the convent. With a twinge of guilt, he acknowledged to himself that, had such been the case, he didn't want the confession on record, and he was prepared to forget that he had ever heard it himself. But there was another matter for the recorder, which is why he had brought it.

'The official record,' he said, 'says that you shot and killed Richard Brook, made it look like a suicide, and then took your own life. Right now, the boys at the Yard are convinced that only one of those things is not true.' He clicked the button, and the bulb glowed red. 'I need your statement,' he said, 'of what really happened that day, on the roof of St Barts.'


	27. Chapter 27: Silver Lining

**Chapter 27: Silver Lining**

**DAYS ONWARD**

Fifteen minutes after leaving a note on her tenants' door, Mrs Hudson heard a solid pounding on her own. It was such an unexpectedly raucous hammering that she sloshed the tea she had just poured for herself onto her newly mopped lino as she carried the cup across her kitchen to the sitting room. Fussing, she set the cup on the counter, dropped a towel to the floor, and footed her way to the door.

'What the hell is _this!_' said Mr Eider, shoving an arm past the doorjamb before she had even fully opened the door and could offer a pleasant hello.

Mrs Hudson blinked rapidly, as the page fluttered so close to her face. She didn't back away but answered calmly, 'Oh, is that my note?'

'An additional three hundred and fifty pounds a month? Are you _batty_, woman?'

She put up a placating hand and said, 'No need for a tone, Mr Eider. The new rent won't take effect until the current contract is expired, of course—'

'That's next month!'

'—and only if you choose to renew for the upcoming year.'

'This is robbery, that's what this is. You can't expect people to pay this! My wife and I won't stand for it.'

'I'm sorry, but I don't have much of a choice.' She shook her head pitiably and rested a hand over her heart. 'London property taxes are so terribly high, and I can't get anyone to rent that bottom flat to help offset those costs. And with the new security measures I want to take—not the safest of neighbourhoods anymore—and, oh, I've been meaning to renovate the bathrooms . . .'

'Forget it.' He crumpled the note and threw it into her flat. Then he tossed his hands into the air. 'Forget it! Bloody corpses left on our bloody doorstep, bloody coppers and reporters at every bloody hour of the night as if this is some damn celebrity mansion. We're moving. Moving!' He stomped away, and as he tromped up the stairs, he hollered, 'Good luck finding another tenant for this shithole, you old bat.'

The upstairs door slammed; she felt the floorboards shake.

With a reserved smile of satisfaction, she quietly shut her door.

* * *

**_FAKE GENIUS FAKED DEATH_**

_by Kitty Riley_

_This morning, New Scotland Yard revealed the startling news that Sherlock Holmes, criminal mastermind notorious for his murder-suicide of June 2011, is not, in fact, dead. _

_Some of you may remember the events that led to the amateur detective's apparent demise, including Mr Holmes' robbery of a £1.7 million Turner masterpiece, his kidnapping of executive banker Arnold Wellesley and later the Bruhl children, and, perhaps most famously of all, his orchestrations in breaking into the Tower of London, the Bank of England, and Pentonville Prison via a criminal of his own invention, James Moriarty. _

_But even a man as clever as Mr Holmes couldn't keep that many balls in the air, and it was only a matter of time before he was found out. His criminal reign at last ended when, according to multiple eyewitnesses, Mr Holmes jumped from the roof of St Bartholomew's Hospital in Central London, where he was pronounced dead at the scene._

_Today, Mr Holmes can be seen on the streets of London, very much alive, having succeeded in fooling police, doctors, and onlookers alike, like the master illusionist he is._

_Details regarding how he accomplished this grand deception have not been forthcoming. What is indisputable, however, is that the sham suicide directly followed the murder of acclaimed television actor Richard Brook. Shockingly, as of today, Mr Holmes does not sit behind bars._

_'The case has been reopened,' says Sgt Sally Donovan of the Met. 'With new evidence that has been brought to light, further investigation is warranted. But Mr Holmes, it bears repeating, has not been arrested or formally charged.'_

_Nevertheless, with criminal charges pending and the pall of his disreputable past hanging over him, Mr Holmes is already in hot water. But it gets worse. His sudden return to London—and to the land of the living—may very well be connected to the kidnappings of former colleague and publicist Dr John H Watson and Watson's girlfriend, Ms Mary S Morstan, who was found dead Wednesday afternoon when her body was dumped on Baker Street, located in Central London, right on the doorstep of Mr Holmes' last known residence. Some believe that the gruesome nature of her murder is exactly Mr Holmes' style._

_'Holmes was always a dramatist,' says Officer Scott Anderson, Head of Forensics at New Scotland Yard and one of the Met's primary investigators credited with uncovering the truth behind Mr Holmes' now infamous crimes and carefully devised, bogus cases. 'His faked death—plummeting from the roof of St Barts—is certainly proof of that. It would make sense for him to also orchestrate this kind of triumphant return—the timely solving of another horrific crime. It's the sort of thing he does. He did it before.'_

_Others speculate that Mr Holmes targeted Dr Watson because he knew the truth about Mr Holmes' final grandiose deception and was threatening to go public._

_'If anyone knew the truth about Holmes all along, it was Watson,' says Detective Inspector Dimmock of New Scotland Yard. 'The two presented themselves as colleagues, but it was obvious that Holmes had Watson on a short leash. I knew it wouldn't bode well for Watson if he ever mustered the courage to defy the hobby detective, or expose him as anything less than brilliant.'_

_'He [Holmes] was always something of a loose cannon,' recalls Sebastian Wilkes, one of Mr Holmes' peers from university. 'Brilliant, no doubt, but volatile. Scared us all, frankly. None us of knew what he was capable of, so we kept our distance. The poor Watson fellow apparently lacked that same sense of self-preservation.'_

_Dr Watson, who spent ten days as a victim of Holmes' alleged kidnapping plot, is currently undergoing treatment at St Bartholomew's Hospital for injuries sustained during his ordeal. It is not known the extent of his injuries, or whether he is expected to make a full recovery._

_Mr Holmes was not available for comment._

_Story continues on page 4_

Below the bottom edge of the newspaper, Mycroft Holmes saw a pair of feet come to a stop on the pavement, followed by a huff of annoyance. 'I would expect you to have more refined tastes in newspapers.'

He folded down the corner of the front page of _The_ _Sun_ to see a look of disapproval on DI Lestrade's face. He cleared his throat and began to fold it away. 'I like to keep an ear to public opinion,' he said, his breath rising as fog, mixing with mist. 'One can't mount a very decent defence otherwise.'

'Rubbish, all of it.'

'It does lack Ms Riley's usual flare for distortion,' Mycroft agreed blandly. 'She is usually more suave.'

'She draws him as some sort of super villain. Never mind that he saved John's life, or that the Yard's launched a manhunt for two of the _actual_ criminals, or that we've arrested _nine_ of our own. She's just drawing on all the same lies from three years ago.'

'And why not? Those lies made her career.'

'She's not even a real journalist. She sells sensationalism, not truth.'

'She sells papers,' Mycroft corrected him, striving for the air of indifference he had so perfected; but underneath it all, he felt sick. 'That's what they pay her for, not truth. Maybe one of these days, Sherlock will learn his lesson about slighting women. Offend one even once, and she'll unleash the claws. Ms Riley, Ms Adler, your own Ms Donovan—'

'Molly didn't,' said Lestrade. 'She became one of his greatest allies.'

'Ah. Of course.' He restrained a knowing smile. 'I would be remiss to include Ms Hooper in such a deprecating statement.'

He watched amusedly as Lestrade, pink from the cold and getting pinker, hurriedly changed the direction of the conversation. 'Has Sherlock seen that?'

'I doubt it. Up until now, he's evaded all those ravenous reporters and over-eager photographers. Besides, this is today's paper, and he's been sequestered in the waiting room of the third floor since before dawn. At least you convinced him to leave for a shower and a few hours' sleep. The smell was getting to the nurses.'

'I don't know that it did _him_ much good though,' said Lestrade. 'He was fretting all night. Called Donovan every thirty minutes to make sure her security detail was still tight. She handled it really well, though. Screamed at him only three times, the way she tells it.'

'She's been the Yard's spokesperson, is that right?'

'That's right. She's good at handling the press. Better than me, at least. I hate them all. Vultures.'

'So what were the others doing talking to Ms Riley?'

Lestrade scowled, shoving his hands deep inside the pockets of his coat and shifting his weight irately. 'Anderson and Dimmock. Tossers, the both of them. They know very well that the official response is _no comment_. Only Sally was given authority to talk to the press because only _she_ could stick to the facts: the Richard Brook murder case has been reopened, and Sherlock has not been charged.'

'Will he be?'

Lestrade sniffed and shook his head in angst, eyes cast far down the wet road.

'Greg. Will my brother stand trial for murder?'

'It's looking that way,' said Lestrade begrudgingly. 'A lot of people are convinced he killed Moriarty. Worst thing Sherlock can do now is run again. But that doesn't seem bloody likely, now does it?'

'Not unless John tells him to.'

'And that won't happen, because John won't see him.'

'We're all right then,' said Mycroft sarcastically.

'The prosecution will spin a credible story,' continued Lestrade, 'but the defence will have the hard facts, the ones John has been trumpeting all along. Fingerprints, ballistics reports, the angle of trajectory—it all points to suicide.'

'An explanation that makes sense only if Jim Moriarty is both a psychopath and _not_ Richard Brook. And the best person to help you prove _that_, detective inspector, is the very last person the jury is going to believe on the matter.'

'Aren't you the pessimist.'

'Forgive me. There has been little silver lining in any of this.'

* * *

The days passed steadily and without event, and Sherlock had not been invited back to see John. He got reports on his condition through others.

'Still only liquids,' said a nurse, whom Sherlock had charmed into offering up the more mundane details regarding his treatment. 'Some yoghurts and jelly and lots of water. He's having trouble keeping it all down though. Not unusual with victims of . . . assaults of this nature. He craves food but can't stomach it moving past his lips.'

On another occasion, he accosted Molly. 'I sneaked a peak at his blood work and other test results,' she confessed with a blush. 'Nothing to worry about, in terms of, you know, disease, which is something of a miracle, given Mr Hirsch's history with, um . . . Anyway, the worst of it were low glucose levels and high sodium. Hypernaetremia. Both were expected, though, given his state of dehydration and having eaten so little, and his doctors are treating the electrolyte imbalance in his system and getting things back to where they should be through intravenous administration of dextrose and saline solutions. But that's the worst of it, Sherlock, really.'

'You'll be happy to know,' said another nurse, passing him in the hallway where he was now a familiar sight, 'your friend is a getting more mobile. Today, he asked for a wheelchair, if only to get out of that bed.'

'They sent in a psychiatrist this morning,' Lestrade told him. 'Man named Aaron Peabody. John, well, he told him to sod off. I guess he's not ready to talk about it.'

He didn't want to talk to Lestrade, either, or to anyone, about what had taken place in the basement of St Mary's Convent. Lestrade didn't press it. John had already confirmed the identities of their suspects, and until one of them was arrested, his testimony wasn't, strictly speaking, requisite. Even then, the evidence recovered in the kitchen and elsewhere—alongside the evidence of John's and Mary's own bodies—was enough to give detectives a pretty clear picture of what had taken place over the course of those ten days.

But he was concerned about how John was internalising all he had gone through, and whether his isolation was helping matters. Hadn't he already been isolated enough? Then again, who would John turn to, if he had a choice? He was the last surviving member of his immediate family, had no known relations, and had no friends. Staff from St Elizabeth's had sent flowers and a signed card, but he wasn't close to any of them, so none of them tried more than once to come see him, in small groups; and after he said he didn't want to see any of them, they didn't try again. He wouldn't turn to Lestrade, a man whose ties of friendship had been severed years ago, even if he had known how willing Lestrade was to rebuild that friendship. And he wouldn't, couldn't, turn to Sherlock.

The few times Lestrade had managed to speak to John, he had gotten a poor read on what was going on behind the stoic face. The man had been tortured. He had been viciously raped, likely more than once. He had witnessed his beloved murdered. He had suffered the shock of Sherlock's being alive. And he lay there, in a joyless room, knowing every passing second that it was the reality of his existence and he could never undo any of it. Yet he seemed to feel nothing. Was it numbness, or emptiness? Would the grief come, the pain, the rage? Or would he crumble to nothing deep inside, unseen, unheard, until he was a hollow shell of a man?

He wasn't talking, so no one knew. As a matter of procedure, Dr Peabody placed him on suicide watch, denied him clearance to be removed from intensive care, and recommended antidepressants. The latter, John refused.

So the phone call from Barts, one dreary afternoon, caught Lestrade off his guard. John was asking for him. He wanted to talk.

'He says he'll speak with you,' said one of his doctors to the detective inspector, intercepting him in the hallway. 'But only you. None of the other officers.'

'That won't be a problem,' said Lestrade, who had brought no one else with him.

'And he didn't want to stay in intensive care. The nurses aren't happy, but he's strong enough now, and frankly I'm pleased to see how eager he is to move around. We've arranged for you to meet him in a small conference room in the north wing, not far from here. We had a nurse wheel him over. She'll wait outside once you get there. I would ask, though, that you try to keep it short. If you see that he's getting tired or uncomfortable, just tell him you'll continue at another time and fetch the nurse.'

Lestrade agreed.

* * *

He arrived in the designated room at the appointed hour to find John already there, seated in a wheelchair and pulled near the long table in the centre of the room. It was enough to seat ten. His nurse was adjusting the cords on the attached IV stand behind him so that they wouldn't catch on anything if he moved.

There was a little more colour to his skin today, and his eyes were more alert, which were improvements, of a sort. But Lestrade still found it difficult to look at him. True to one of the regrettable rules of nature, the body breaks swiftly, heals slowly. John's was testimony of the fact.

But he couldn't allow John to see him disturbed by the lamentable sight of him. 'Hello, John,' said Lestrade, striving for normalcy in tone. Then the lie: 'You're looking well.' He smiled and pretended he didn't notice the shallow cuts up his exposed arms or the closed wounds in his neck or the slightly offset nose, and he tried not to imagine the stitches in his back or chest and elsewhere. The stitches in his scalp were hidden by the dark blond hair that was beginning to fill in the patches where they had shaved him. Both wrists were still wrapped and rested in his lap. He had noticed during the past brief visits that John was careful not to bend them.

John nodded in acknowledgement that he had spoken, not that he was right, and didn't comment on it. Instead, he cleared his throat. 'Is he still here?' he asked, not meeting Lestrade's eyes.

It was the question he asked every time he saw Lestrade, sometimes at the beginning of their short conversations, sometimes at the end, but without fail. Lestrade still wasn't sure why, because he never asked to see him.

Lestrade gave his usual answer. 'Yes, he's just down the hall.'

Fixing his gaze on an invisible point on the table, he said, bracing, 'I'd like him here for this.'

Lestrade stared. 'You're sure?'

'I'll wait.'

They sent the nurse, who, before hurrying out, placed a mug of water and a straw on the table within John's reach, though he ignored it. Meanwhile, Lestrade pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it across the table from John. 'You're feeling up to this, then?' he asked.

John ignored that comment too. 'They told me you got shot.'

Lestrade waved it away. 'Nah, it was nothing. Took me out of action for all of an hour is all.' He smiled as if to say _another day in the life of a cop_. The truth of it was, it had been his first time, not being shot _at_, but actually taking a bullet. As a matter of policy, he was meeting with one of the Yard's therapists about it, which he supposed was a good thing, given that he'd begun to have nightmares, not only because he'd been attacked with a lethal weapon but because of, well, all of it. It had been a punishing week. For John, a hellish ten-day stretch. He wondered what John dreamed about at night.

'It was'—John took a steadying breath, as though speaking the actual name cost him something dear—'Pete, was it?'

'Peter Caldwell, that's right.'

'And you shot him dead.'

Lestrade wasn't smiling anymore. 'Yes, I did.'

'Good.'

At that moment, the door opened again, and it was with an air of diffidence that Sherlock Holmes entered the room, pausing just this side of the threshold. At first, he seemed a little lost, as though he were surprised to find himself in that room; clearly, he had not been expecting the summons. He didn't even seem cognizant that Lestrade was present, too. His eyes went immediately to John, who met his gaze, and held it. Neither man spoke, and the unvoiced tension in the air was so heavy Lestrade felt almost suffocated.

If Sherlock was waiting for permission to advance into the room and take a chair, John wasn't giving it. In this way, they faced each other, unblinking, expressionless, until Lestrade, who couldn't stand the strain of silence much longer, finally broke through the quiet.

'Close the door, Sherlock, and take a seat.'

Sherlock was then forced to choose his chair, and Lestrade had to look away from the discomfiting sight, as the dilemma was clearly displayed on his face. To sit directly beside John's wheelchair assumed a particular kind of intimacy they no longer shared, at the head of the table an authority he had not earned, and next to Lestrade a coldness he did not feel, which would leave John alone on the opposite side. Anywhere else, and he might as well not even be in the room. In the end, he chose the seat beside John. But as he pulled back the chair, he moved it to the side and created a greater space between them.

By the time he was at last seated, Lestrade had pulled out his digital voice recorder again. 'Do you mind?' he asked John.

John shook his head no. He was no longer looking at Sherlock.

'Just so we're all on the same page,' said Lestrade, 'we can stop this at any time, pick it up again later.' Both men nodded. 'John, I'll be asking you questions about the things you saw and heard and any other details you can remember. If you don't want to answer something, or if you want to come back to it later, just tell me.'

John cleared his throat and lifted his chin a little, an indication that he was ready. Lestrade clicked the record button, and the red bulb glowed.

'Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade of the Metropolitan Police,' he said into the machine, 'interviewing Dr John H Watson of 116 Porters Avenue, London, on this, Saturday, the first of November, two-thousand fourteen. The time is sixteen hundred hours. Also present, Mr Sherlock Holmes of . . . London.'

They started at the very beginning, before John ever stepped foot inside Grant & Chapman's. Not only was it the most logical point of entry, but by starting there, Lestrade could begin by asking the less difficult, more standard of questions. Had he been aware he was being watched? No. Had he accidentally bumped into anyone? Seen an acquaintance? Had an exchange with a stranger? No. Had he noticed anything at all unusual that day, prior to entering the cab? No. What did he remember about the cabbie?

'Yorkshire accent,' said John. 'Middle-aged, short grey hair, silver wire-rimmed glasses. Five-eleven, maybe, thick build, large nose. I think I may have broken it.'

He recounted the drive to the alleyway, getting out, being grabbed. _Should've run,_ he said. _Should've run right then_. But other than that, he made little commentary on what had transpired. Instead, he laid out the facts as he recalled them, passionless and succinct, a soldier reporting to his superior officer. The narrative he constructed made it seem almost as though he hadn't actually been a part of it, as though he had been watching it happen from a distance, through a window, on the telly. His focus was on the four men—their descriptions, their characters, their words, their habits—and when he spoke of the methods of extraction, the details served only to further explicate these things about them. He sacrificed the details of the torture or referred to them in only the most clinical of terms. As for the associated terror and severe pain on his part, he made no mention at all. In fact, if Lestrade wasn't mistaken (and he was sure Sherlock was picking up on it, too), John almost never referred to himself in the first person. Where he might have said, 'They fed me very little', he supplanted, 'They offered very little food'; rather than 'They slashed my right foot with a knife', he said, 'They slashed the right foot first, then the left.' John Watson was little more than a background character in his own narration.

And there it was—a coping mechanism. Lestrade had seen it before. Some victims of trauma remembered only the extreme emotions—fear, pain, anxiety—associated with the events, though not so much the events themselves; others blocked the memories out entirely. John, it soon became evident, in distancing himself, remembered his experience in hyper-detail: the number of steps he had taken while blindfolded, the colour of Alexander Slough's shoes, the make of Peter Caldwell's phone, the smell of Sebastian Moran's breath. He also remembered discourse with near exactness.

'_We're the same_,' he said without inflection, staring at a spot in the centre of the table. 'He said it repeatedly. _You and I are just the same_.'

Sherlock shifted anxiously in his chair but kept quiet.

The thoroughness of detail, however, began to taper off as the victim he shirked to acknowledge as himself grew in hunger and thirst and the pain intensified. He became uncertain who had said what or which had come first, Lex's taser or Pete's lighter, the tin of tomatoes or the tin of black beans. Then John reached the point in the account when Moran brought in Mary. Here, at last, his soldier's mask cracked and his tongue faltered.

'Perhaps,' said Lestrade gently, 'we should break here for now.'

'_No_,' said John. His eyes burned into Lestrade's. 'I'm only doing this _once_.'

It was more difficult from that point on. Lestrade found that he had to ask more questions to keep them moving forward, and John's answers became scattered and more painful to speak and to hear. When he drew nearer the moment when Mary had been killed, he couldn't speak at all. It had been as Lestrade had supposed and feared—John had watched Mary die, had witnessed the very act. He was remembering it—Lestrade was watching him remember it. His every muscle tightened and his eyes shone. For a long while, his throat was too thick to make even a sound. Nevertheless, he refused to stop until they had reached the end.

As for Sherlock, he sat stiffly in his chair and listened, watching John from the corner of his eye while his fingernails raked along the back of his hand. On a few occasions, he asked questions of his own (when, evidently, Lestrade failed to get at some more important matter through his line of questioning), but in a tone that seemed to be seeking permission to speak, more rumble than voice. When he did, John held his breath and his fingers curled inward; his eyes focused ever more intently on that invisible spot in the centre of the table as he listened. And when he answered, he answered to Lestrade. It occurred to Lestrade, after four or five of Sherlock's questions, that John hadn't looked at him once since his arrival, as if he weren't actually in the room. He wondered, again, why Sherlock had been invited into that space of privacy and revelation, as it didn't seem John wanted him there at all.

Several times, he was a hair's breadth away from throwing Sherlock from the room himself.

'After that initial assault,' said Lestrade with great delicacy, following John's vague allusion to what had happened after he had been fitted with the cilice, 'were there others?'

John subconsciously shifted in his chair, as though to relieve some unmentioned pressure. One hand began to shake, so he placed the other over it to keep it still. The muscles in his arm continued to twitch. 'Yes.'

He had been careful to adopt John's method of excluding personal pronouns. 'Was Hirsch again the perpetrator?'

'Yes.'

'The only perpetrator?'

John swallowed; he worried his tongue between his teeth before being able to answer. 'Moran, too.'

'What about Slough or Caldwell?'

'No.'

John was offering up no further details on this point, which was more a matter for his doctors and therapists anyway, so Lestrade was about to move on, when Sherlock interrupted.

'How many times?'

Lestrade could see John's breathing suddenly become more laboured. 'It's fine, John, you don't need to answer that.'

'More than five times?' asked Sherlock, ignoring Lestrade.

John couldn't look at either of them now. He nodded subtly.

'More than ten?'

'Sherlock—' said Lestrade.

'I don't know,' said John in a small voice.

'Were they filmed?'

'Jesus, Sherlock, behave,' said Lestrade through gritted teeth. John had paled considerably and his brow shone; he looked like he might be sick.

But he answered, so quietly it was doubtful the digital recorder would pick it up. 'A few.'

Sherlock's next question was for Lestrade. 'Did you recover John's phone from the crime scene?'

'The only phone we found,' said Lestrade tersely, 'had belonged to Arthur Doyle.'

Sherlock sat back, looking distressed and biting a thumbnail.

Following that exchange, John grew quiet, unable, or unwilling, to answer more questions. Perhaps it was because he could remember nothing more, only a mess of images and hallucinations, few of which made any real sense. He was unable to tell them where the new location was to have been, not even sure if he may have overheard them speaking of it. In truth, he had been unaware that they had been planning to move him the very night he had been saved.

At long last, Lestrade reached for the digital recorder and turned it off. 'Thank you, John,' he said. 'That couldn't have been easy. But what you've been able to tell us . . . It will help.'

Sherlock nodded darkly, his eyes smouldering.

'I'm tired,' said John, licking his dry lips. He had not drunk from the mug the nurse had provided, hadn't even reached for it.

Indeed, he looked exhausted. Lestrade began to rise, to fetch the nurse, but John forestalled him.

'Help me to my room, Sherlock,' he said.

Sherlock managed to contain his astonishment to a small snap of the head in John's direction, and it took a meaningful look from Lestrade to get him to his feet. He moved to stand behind John's wheelchair and took uncertain hold of the push handles. Lestrade, meanwhile, stood and closed the top button of his jacket. He slipped the recorder into his pocket.

'I'll come by again tomorrow, maybe?' he asked John. John nodded his agreement.

Before leaving the room, Lestrade tried to meet Sherlock's eyes, meaning to give him a significant look, but Sherlock's attention was riveted still on the man in the wheelchair. So he went on ahead to tell the nurse that Sherlock Holmes would be assisting John back to intensive care.

* * *

Sherlock wheeled John slowly down the hallways in silence, minding both the chair and the IV stand. It seemed to them both a very long walk.

When they arrived at the door of 319, one of the nurses who had noticed John's return down the hall began to approach, but John waved her away. He was well enough now not to need constant supervision from the medical staff, though his doctors weren't quite comfortable yet with the idea of moving him from intensive care altogether, at least not until a psychologist had also cleared him. He was still hooked up to a saline drip to keep him hydrated, and the pain was kept at bay with morphine, five milligrams an hour. His interview had lasted nearly two, but whether he needed it or not, he was seeking no relief.

Sherlock pushed the door open and wheeled him inside, toward the bed.

'Window,' said John.

Obediently, Sherlock turned the chair and rolled it past the row of empty beds to the window on the far side of the room. There, he positioned John's chair, pulled the orange curtains open and twisted the blinds. Then he stood aside so John could look out into the grey, wet world.

A minute or two passed, the only sounds the hum of machines and the water droplets breaking against the pane. Sherlock, a dark, ghostly reflection over John's shoulder and two steps behind, stared at him through the glass and wondered what was happening beneath that stolid mask that seemed to defy a deeper grief.

'John,' he said softly, 'what you said in there, about—'

'Don't talk, Sherlock,' said John.

His mouth closed.

'Stay here. Just . . . just don't talk.'

Thunder rumbled in the distance, the promise of future storms.


	28. Chapter 28: Liminal Space

**Chapter 28: Liminal Space  
**

**DAYS ONWARD**

Sometime in the middle of the night, John awoke, a deep ache pulsing in his leg, his back on fire. Other discomforts were re-manifesting, pains that never did fully subside—even when drugged—but throbbed steadily, if not dully, as an obdurate reminder that he had been damaged, every part. He wanted to turn onto his side, to give some relief to his sliced-and-stitched back, but lying on one side added pressure to his broken ribs, causing him sharp, jabbing pains and shortness of breath; and on the other side, strain on his wounded leg. He couldn't lie on his stomach; it was far too vulnerable a position.

Near at hand was the control for the morphine. They were letting him self-administer, now that he was no longer strapped down, but he rarely did. He hated the accompanying nausea, the dizziness, the sweating. Sometimes, however, it all became too much. Even now, he was standing on the border of what he knew he could endure and what would start him weeping. He could simply press a button and let the drug wash him in a false sense of healing. But he knew that, even with the temporary alleviation, he could still feel the subdued, ceaseless hurt. It was ridiculous, but he felt like the drug was lying to him. He would rather just feel it all. At least it was honest pain.

The lights were low to help him sleep, but he couldn't. Wearily, he rolled his head to the right and saw one of the doctors standing at the nearby counter with his back turned. He was hunched over, scratching onto a clipboard. Maybe taking notes, maybe leaving instructions, what did it matter? John could ask, _had_ asked, about his condition, his treatments, but they only ever gave him the standard laymen's responses and practiced bedside manner he had once used with patients himself, never minding his history as a medical professional. They only ever told him he was doing well, going to be fine. More dishonesty, more ways to keep him in the dark.

So he ignored the button for the morphine. He didn't want it. But he _was_ thirsty. IVs might have been keeping his body hydrated, but they did little to quench a dry mouth. He could stomach a little bit of water—from a cup, not a straw—just enough to slake the terrible thirst. Lips, tongue, throat, it all felt like breathing in Afghan air. He could almost feel the sand between his teeth, the sweat-salt on his lips. But when he breathed, he smelled peppermint.

'I need—' he began, feeling his vocal cords scratch together—'water. A drink.'

The doctor didn't seem to hear him and continued scratching.

John looked at his bedside table and saw the mug of water one of the nurses had left. It was just out of reasonable reach, and in any case he didn't want to drink from the straw. He took a breath, coughed a little, and spoke again. 'Sorry. A drink of water?'

Hearing him now, the doctor half turned, but his face remained in shadow. 'You know, Dr Watson,' he said, raising his writing instrument so John could see, 'one can't spell _you are mine_ without I, O, U.'

The point of the scalpel caught the low light, and gleamed.

Sudden panic seized him by the throat, a primal fear that strangled him while screaming at him to fly. He thrashed but once, meaning to leap from the bed, but a horrific pain reawakened throughout his whole body—skin, muscles, bones, nerves—paralyzing him in the bed. His suddenly deflated lungs could not draw breath enough to scream. Desperate, he fumbled for the call button.

Sebastian Moran knocked it away; it fell dangling over the side of the bed.

With great effort, John gasped. The quick air felt like a punch, a knife in his side, but it was just enough to cry out: 'Sher—!'

But Moran was on him, clamping a hand over his mouth and pressing his head deep into the pillow. He flashed the scalpel in front of John's rounded, petrified eyes.

'Pretty little fuck toy,' he sang in John's ear. 'That's my Johnny boy.'

The razor-tip of the blade nicked his throat.

John jerked and writhed but discovered that his wrists were clamped together in Moran's fist and then forced above his head. The man was too strong, John too weak. He screamed into the man's hand as Moran threw a leg over him, straddling him as before, and he dragged the scalpel down to his chest where he began to dig with ferocity. John could feel the hot blood seeping out of him like lava even as a knee slammed into his groin. He moaned and twisted and cried, powerless, powerless.

'That's right, Johnny. Moan, _moan_. You are mine. You are mine.'

His nose filled with the reek of ammonia; his throat burned with it. He felt Moran's hands on his naked skin, felt the hard rutting against him, fingers sliding down and thrusting in. He felt his gorge rise. Wildly, he cast his eyes toward the door of his room, his heart thudding to see that it was made of solid, stainless steel; toward the flickering lights above his head; to the long ginger hairs on his pillow beside his head.

Hands, fingers, everywhere. Holding his head in place, raking his sides, pushing down on his shoulders, digging inside of him. Blood rushed to the surface, staining the sheets red. Naked, cold, shivering, starving.

_Stop! Stop!_

_Hold him. Hold him._

_Stupid little fuck._

He strained against the wire and felt his skin being torn apart by barbs and blades. Not far away, he heard gunshots and felt hot air shredding against his cheek.

_John! John!_

On the orange-tiled floor, Sherlock lay dead, his throat slashed wide like a mouth agape.

_John!_

Moran laughed.

He felt like he was rising, breaking through the choppy surface of an ocean in turmoil, struggling for the sky above. Faces swam before him, unknown, unfriendly, a middle-aged woman, a twenty-something man. Then a wave crashed back over him, and he was swallowed again.

Daz stood over Sherlock's prone body, a heavy army boot poised over his head. Then an ungodly _crunch_.

John screamed into a hand fastened against his mouth.

_I'll break you._ _You're hurting him!_

_Back away. Back away now._

_You are mine._

'John!'

His head abruptly broke the surface again. The flickering lights disappeared, casting him back into a dimly lit room; the door hung open, a perfectly ordinary door; and he wasn't cold—he was hot. So very hot. He was burning.

Lines of sweat ran down his face. Blood soaked the front of his hospital gown.

Arms held him down, but he continued to fight, to be free of them—they were trying to push him back under the water! He cried out, twisted, writhed, but they didn't slacken.

'Stop, no! What are you giving him?'

'Just a sedative, Mr Holmes, to calm him down.'

'To put him to sleep? That's exactly what he's trying to escape from!'

John's eyes flashed to the frantic figure who stood at one side of the bed, near his knee and just behind the male nurse pinning him to the mattress. He lifted a hand, reaching for him, but felt himself being further restrained. He screamed in wild terror. Breaking free of the nurses, he lunged forward in desperate need, caught the man by the sleeve at the elbow, and dragged him close. He threw his opposite arm around the man's neck, unwittingly wresting himself free of the cannulas.

'You're not here,' he cried into the man's neck, 'you're not real!'

'I'm here, John,' said a deep voice in his ear, 'I'm real.'

'Oh god, don't leave. Damn you, don't leave.'

'Ten ccs of ketamine. We should run a CVC.'

'I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.'

'He's bleeding. Do you see that? He's bleeding.'

'Someone page Dr Palmer.'

'Don't leave.'

'Mr Holmes, we need you to step outside—'

'It's the stitches. He's ripped them out!'

'Don't!'

'John, we need you to let go.'

'I'm here.'

'Please, Mr Holmes, you need to leave—'

'I can't go back there. Don't make me go back.'

'Palmer's on his way. And I've paged Dr Peabody.'

'He's here, he's here. Oh god.'

'We can't treat him when you're—'

'Yes, thank you, take him out, _now_.'

'I'm not going anywhere!'

'No! Please, no!'

Their contact was cruelly severed, and determined hands pushed John down into the mattress. He saw two men, over the nurse's shoulder, dragging Sherlock away and toward the door. Their eyes met, locked, and then suddenly, he was gone.

* * *

'Someone explain to me what the _hell_ just happened.'

Sherlock was pacing. He couldn't get the image out of his brain, couldn't delete it even if he wanted to: John reaching out to him from across the room, his eyes blown wide with panic, the eyes of one betrayed. His fear had been so raw, so unadulterated, like the pure emotion of a child, but with the depth of one who knew the long reach of human cruelty, the fullness of suffering, and the limitations of endurance. John had needed him, like he needed air, and they had forced him from the room.

He had been in the hallway at two o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep, unwilling to sit. Although he had spent the whole of the latter half of the day with John, it had been both wonderful and painful, as John didn't want him to leave his side, but nor did he allow him to say a word. It was confusing, and Sherlock hated being confused.

Eventually, out of simple but intense exhaustion, John had fallen asleep. Mycroft came and took Sherlock away, refusing to release him again until he had eaten something. Over dinner, he learned about Kitty Riley, the story the media was repeating, and the uncertain intentions of Scotland Yard, but he didn't care about any of it. By the time he returned to the third floor, they told him that John was sleeping and wasn't to be disturbed. A nurse found him a spare bed, if he chose to sleep. He told her thank you, just to get her to go away. Then he planted himself in the hallway to wait until morning.

At around two, Sherlock watched as a nurse popped an Altoid and entered the room to take a blood sample. Two minutes later, he heard the machines begin to scream, saw more nurses rushing into 319, and heard John's voice escape in short cries and sobs. He raced into the room.

'He was suffering a nightmare,' Dr Peabody explained to him and Lestrade, hours later.

'A nightmare,' repeated Sherlock scathingly. 'He tore the stitches out of his chest with his own fingernails. What the hell kind of nightmare is _that_?'

'An extremely vivid, hyper-realistic, anxiety-laden dream. It appears as though he was reliving the trauma of his time in captivity. In a way, this is a positive sign.'

'_Positive?_ Are you an utter and complete moron? How the hell is this—?'

'Let the man talk, Sherlock,' Lestrade cut in.

'Mr Watson—' Dr Peabody began again.

'Doctor Watson,' Sherlock automatically corrected.

'—is suffering psychological as well as physical effects from the abuse. Up until now, he has shown every sign of emotional numbness, from surface stoicism to refusal to communicate. It may have appeared that he was managing the trauma calmly, when really he was rooted in a stage of denial. Sometimes victims get trapped in that stage of recovery and so can't progress toward healing.'

'PTSD,' said Lestrade. The psychiatrist nodded. 'He's had it before.'

'He's been diagnosed with it before, yes,' said Dr Peabody, 'a couple of times, actually, according to his file. But one suffering PTSD never _entirely_ recovers, I'm afraid, because the memories never just vanish, no matter how much time passes. But one can learn to cope and live a normal life again.'

'What happened tonight,' said Sherlock, '_that_ was not normal.'

'No, but it's an indication that the numbness is wearing off. He's not in a good place, Mr Holmes, I'm not saying that he is. But it appears that he's transitioning into what we call the "intrusive-repetitive" stage. It's progress—his mind is attempting to sort through and make sense of all that has happened. But he's finding it difficult to handle, emotionally, and without guidance, therapy, he'll find it almost impossible navigate on his own. This is where it gets particularly hard for those closest to him.'

'What do you mean?' asked Lestrade.

'We can expect his moods to become more volatile. We can expect nightmares when he sleeps and intrusive images and thoughts when he's awake—unpleasant and distressing memories he just won't be able to shake. He may be unable to distinguish memory from reality. He may be aggressive in one moment and crying the next. He may become antisocial or he may be afraid of being left alone. He may startle more easily and manifest unexpected phobias, or he may become reckless, a danger to himself. Honestly, we can never fully predict how a patient will respond. His recovery process will likely be very different to how he coped with coming back from Afghanistan. New trauma, new symptoms. But one thing is certain. He's going to need support. Professional support, as well as the support of those who care most for him. It is my understanding that he has no family?'

'We're his family,' said Sherlock.

'Then you'll need a little coaching.'

'For instance?' said Lestrade.

'After what happened last night, he will need to be monitored when he sleeps. He shouldn't be left alone, not until the nightmares become more manageable. If you notice he's having one—and it will be obvious—don't try to force him awake. I know it's the instinctual thing to do, but don't. If he's startled out of sleep, there is great likelihood that the dream will persist while awake as a hallucination, and it will become harder for him to distinguish fantasy from reality. So don't try to snap him out of it, as it were. Especially, don't touch him. If he is thrashing, you're going to want to hold him down, but if he _is_ moving and not waking himself, he's likely very deep into the dream, and your restraining him will only intensify his fears. He'll feel trapped and powerless. It is _very_ important that he not feel powerless.'

'So do nothing?' said Sherlock, looking aghast.

'No, I'm just explaining how his stressed mind interprets his actual environment. An ordinary knocking he might hear as an intruder breaking the door down. A simple touch may make him feel like he's being attacked, no matter how gentle it is. Our dreams tend to warp things like that, particularly our traumatic dreams. So just speak to him, soothingly. Say his name. Let him hear your voice, and invite him to wake up. The reassurance of a familiar, unthreatening voice will enter his subconscious and calm him, and he will more naturally rise to wakefulness. That's important—that he _naturally_ awake. That puts the power, the autonomy, back into his own hands, and it will speed his recovery.'

'You damn well better tell the medical staff,' Sherlock said. 'They were wrestling him into the mattress when I got there. It's no wonder he thought he was being attacked.'

'They've been reminded,' said Dr Peabody, a little defensively. 'But John was hurting himself while he slept. It was important, in that instance, that he be restrained.'

'He would have been fine,' said Sherlock, 'if that dim-witted ninny of a nurse hadn't been sucking an Altoid.'

Both Lestrade and Dr Peabody stared at him as though he had suddenly declared that the moon was made of cheese.

'How is that relevant?' said Dr Peabody.

'Why's that, Sherlock?' asked Lestrade at the same time, knowing better than the psychiatrist how Sherlock's mind worked.

Sherlock had the gall to look exasperated that no one else could see the obvious connection. 'You heard him say it yourself, Lestrade. Moran's breath reeked of peppermint. And John spent ten days with that smell. Every time Moran got too close, John noticed it—in his mind, it became a presage to pain. So here comes Nurse Midnight Bloodbank, popping a mint from the tin she keeps in the pocket of her shirt and sucking it to powder. _Pungent_ peppermint—I could smell it myself when I was in there, and she was two metres away. Is it any wonder John got a whiff of it, too? _Of course_ he would associate the smell of peppermint with that sadistic bastard, and you said it yourself, _doctor_: Dreams warp our reality. If a mere touch can be interpreted as an assault, what will the scent of a torturer do?'

Dr Peabody looked both annoyed and amazed, but he responded with an air of professionalism, no doubt accustomed to dealing with difficult personalities. 'All right then. I'll tell the staff. No more peppermint.'

'While you're at it, tell them no tomatoes, beans, or peas when he can manage solid food again. And why is the curtain in there _orange_? That colour's not doing anyone any favours, least of all John. Get him a blue one.'

'I . . .' Dr Peabody tugged at the knot of his tie, clearly not understanding but not looking for another dressing down. 'Fine. I'll let them know. In the meantime, perhaps you can convince him that he needs to talk to a _licensed_ therapist. Forgive me, Mr Holmes, but _you_ haven't any training in psychology.'

Sherlock waved away the comment as if it were a cobweb. 'Soft science.'

'Right.' With a sharp clearing of his throat, Dr Peabody took his leave.

When he was gone, Sherlock and Lestrade were left in the waiting room alone. Lestrade sighed and shook his head.

'You certainly do have a way with people,' he said.

Sherlock huffed.

'He's just doing his job, you know.'

'He's rubbish at it.' Sherlock threw himself into a chair and crossed one leg over the other. He steepled his hands and noted the digital clock on the wall. It read 10.29.

'You forget.' Lestrade lowered himself more slowly into the chair opposite; he was still smarting from his own injuries. 'John won't talk to him. So he's working without the benefit of having actually heard John's story. And even if he _had_ heard it, who's to say he would have understood the importance of _peppermint_?'

'Like I said: rubbish. I've checked his history. That is to say, Mycroft has. Peabody has worked primarily with child and domestic abuse cases, and yes, victims of rape, but nothing that is quite on par with _torture_. Not like this. And he's certainly never handled a case involving a genuine sadist. To him, John is just a new and exciting line on his curriculum vitae and a gateway to publishing in a prominent psych journal. Why? So he can get out of working in a hospital, open his own office, hire a PA. He doesn't think he's getting paid enough here—not enough fat-wallet clients—thinks that he deserves better than this place and what his pay check will afford. You saw his haircut. His wife does it herself, uses a buzz trimmer, because they pinch every penny, probably because she's an alcoholic and throws his money around in the pubs every night but Sunday. And his glasses? Outdated prescription—you can tell from the way his pupils continually strain to focus when shifting to a different depth perception. Can't afford new ones. And his watch? Doesn't even keep time. He wears it for appearances sake because his more well-to-do but not highly observant colleagues may mistake it for platinum. It's _not_. It's white gold, and the scratches in the rhodium plating prove it. John is nothing more than Dr Peabody's ticket to a bigger life.' He smirked. 'But like you said: he's not talking.' His mouth quickly became a straight line again. 'Residual and intensified _trust issues_.'

'He talked to _us_,' said Lestrade.

'Yes.'

'But that won't be enough, Sherlock. Dr Peabody was right about one thing: We're not shrinks. Sooner or later, he'll need the help of a professional.'

'Not Peabody. Mycroft will find someone.'

'You should let John decide on that. If helping him recover means enabling his autonomy, he should choose his own therapist.'

Sherlock nodded.

Lestrade let him sit with that thought for a moment. Then he sighed again and said wonderingly, 'Peppermint.'

'What about it?'

'I mean _really_, Sherlock? The way you join the dots sometimes . . .'

'It was an obvious connection—'

'It's _not_ obvious, because if it were, more people would see it. I mean, I heard it too, in there. I remember hearing it. I thought John's mention of the smell of peppermint unusual but not significant—why _would_ I think it significant?—so I dismissed it. But here you come along, and in two steps, without even talking to John, you identify it as the trigger for the bad dream.'

'It's the genius,' said Sherlock, but, strangely, without any pretension. In fact, he felt rotten about it. 'Can't turn it off.'

'Well,' said Lestrade with half a laugh, 'you shouldn't. We're going to need you in the end, I think, to find them. Keep those wheels turning.'

'Exactly.'

'Exactly what?' When Sherlock seemed disinclined to answer, Lestrade pressed him. 'Exactly what, Sherlock?'

'Exactly why John asked for me.' When Lestrade continued to look puzzled, he said, 'It wasn't about wanting_ me_ there. He needed the _machine_, not a friend masquerading as a detective whose tact and sensitivity would keep him from asking the hard questions that needed to be asked.'

'Sherlock—'

'You were playing it soft, Lestrade. Because you _cared_. John knew you wouldn't be able probe, not like you needed to. Just as he knew I wouldn't be able to back away from a line of questioning, no matter how hard it would be for him to answer.'

'Because he thinks you don't care?'

'Because of _this_.' He tapped the side of his head roughly, letting his fingernail scratch the skin. 'He knows what I am.'

'He doesn't think you're a _machine._'

'It was one of the last things he said to me. Before I fell. The last time we were together. Spot on, too. He's no idiot.'

'I see.' Lestrade leaned back in the chair. 'So that's it, is it? That's your full evaluation of how John sees you? And here I thought you were a genius.'

Sherlock raised his head and lowered his hands to the armrests, regarding Lestrade with a look both offended and enquiring.

'Maybe you're right about his reason for needing you there. Hell, I'm glad you _were_ there, because you're right—there were questions I simply couldn't ask, places I wasn't willing to make him go. Usually, I'm able to compartmentalise my feelings and do my job, but in this case . . . Well, you know how it's been. We're complex creatures. So to boil John's motives to a single cause is, frankly, a little insulting to the man's complexity. You've divorced the mind from the heart, and that's not how human beings function, Sherlock. That's not even how _you_ function.'

'I—'

'I'm not done. Look. If you were completely right about him, then he would have finished the sodding interview and gone with the nurse. Right? But instead, he wanted _you_ to take him back to his room, and then he wanted you stay.'

'He barely said a word to me.' Sherlock caught himself before his fingernails could start dragging across the back of his hand. He locked them around the armrests.

'Of course he didn't. How could he? He— Huh.' Lestrade's eyebrows rose. 'For once, I think I understand things a little more clearly than you do.'

Sherlock's eyes alone begged him to elucidate.

'How do I explain this to you? Sherlock—you were _dead_. Whatever your own reality was, that was John's. It was mine, too. So try to understand. Two weeks ago, I saw a ghost standing in the middle of my living room. That whole night, I felt like I was walking around in a dream, because your being real just wasn't possible. For _days_, I felt like I was caught up in some bizarre hallucination, hardly helped by the fact that I couldn't ask anyone else if they could see you, too. I kept having these little internal arguments with myself about whether I had gone to John's flat alone or not, or about whether this _Arthur Doyle _I kept texting even existed. He hardly responded, after all. Do you know that, even now, right now, this'—he gestured to the space between them—'feels strange to me? I see you. I hear you. But the head isn't the only part of a man that needs convincing.'

Not for the first time, Sherlock felt his guilt gnawing away at him.

'So if it's that hard for _me_, how difficult do you suppose this is for John? On top of everything else he's been through, which is already too much for any one man, to find out that you're alive? After three years of living with the horror, the _guilt_, of your death? He can't just let you back in, all at once. Mentally, emotionally, he just can't do it. It's just too much.'

'Too much,' Sherlock echoed softly.

'But damn it, he's trying. God knows why. Let's face it. You hurt him when you left. You hurt him bad. He never quite recovered from it, and your coming back, well, it's almost like you're treading on an open wound. But you know, every time I've gone to see him, he's asked me one question without fail—are _you_ still here? I thought, maybe, he was upset by the thought. _Is he _still_ here? I want him to leave_. When that didn't seem true, I thought he was actually worried that you had abandoned him again and just needed to know that you hadn't, but then why wouldn't he want to see you? But I get it now. What he wanted was confirmation that he hadn't imagined you. Maybe actually seeing you was too much, but my word? It was enough to validate the reality of your being alive. Yesterday, he judged himself ready to be near you again. Maybe he wasn't ready to _look _at you or talk to you, not yet, but he could at least bear to be near you.'

Sherlock considered this. He thought of how John had brought him into the conference room but had looked at him only once in that whole duration. The return to the room, if Lestrade was right, had been ideal: John, in the chair with Sherlock pushing from behind, wouldn't have to see him at all. And afterwards, in his room, as John stared out of the window, he caught sight, once or twice, of John looking, not at him, but at his dark reflection in the glass. It was like John was slowly bringing him back to life, piece by piece.

And then early that morning, the paradox—John clinging to him while crying against his neck: _you're not real, not you're not here_. And the betrayed look in his eyes when they dragged Sherlock away.

'Was it wrong of me?' Sherlock asked.

'Was what wrong?'

'To come back? What it's doing to him, what he's going through. You're right. I hurt him, Lestrade, and I can't undo it, any of it. What they did to him, what they did to Mary—'

Lestrade leaned forward, elbows on knees, and pointed a stern finger at Sherlock. 'You need to stop this, this self-flagellation. I know you blame yourself for it all. You know what? Mycroft blames himself, too. For all of it. Hell, I blame _myself_. I should have been keen to the danger John was in from the beginning. I should have been able to deduce, like you did, that he had been kidnapped. It was _five days_, Sherlock, after he'd been taken, before I knew it for certain, and I had to rely on you to tell me. How much had he already suffered by then? And worse, what if you had never come back at all? I should have acted sooner and moved Mary to a safe house. But no: _I_ am the rubbish detective, and so if we're going to play this game, then I'm as much to blame for her death as you or Mycroft. But you know the bollocks things about all this, Sherlock? John won't blame me. Or Mycroft. He won't even blame you. He'll blame _himself_.'

Sherlock hid his mouth behind a closed fist and looked away.

'You know he doesn't deserve that, none of us _deserves_ it. You included. Why? Because no matter your frailties and failings, no matter how terribly you've screwed up or how many mistakes you've made, you only ever meant the best for John. You only _ever_ tried to save him. You only ever loved him. Why should you be punished for loving him?'

Lestrade then got to his feet and picked up his coat from a chair. Putting his arms through the sleeves, he said, 'Don't forget that there _are_ people to blame, those who meant him _and _you nothing but cruelty, men with malice in their hearts and blood on their hands. You want to hate someone? Hate them. Then help me bring them to justice.' He stepped past Sherlock, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and left him to his thoughts.

* * *

Though it was midday, the skies were dark, hastening night onward. The rain had been falling intermittently throughout the day, but at the moment the earth was holding its breath, waiting for the skies to fall again.

John felt very much the same—in the liminal space between storms. He was sitting by the window again, in the wheelchair, though he held his aluminium cane across his lap. One hand gripped it, and the other ghosted over his left breast, fingertips lightly grazing the cloth of the hospital gown where it lay against the new bandage hiding new stitches.

Two minutes before, one of the nurses had stepped away. Alone now, he pulled the neck of the gown down and peeled back the sticky tape securing the square bandage over the cuts. And there it was. Number nine. Deep slits, twelve stitches, and now, red claw marks—fingernails. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the reality that he had done this to himself, that Moran had _not_ been in his room last night, attacking him with a blade. It had felt so real, and even now, in the daylight, he wasn't fully convinced it hadn't happened. He was having difficulty shaking the image from before his eyes: that twisted mouth, those black eyes, those brutal hands. A hand began to tremble.

The door opened behind him; he heard the click of the handle as if it were gunshot, and he turned his head sharply to see who had entered. When he saw who it was, whatever fear gripped him melted at once.

'May I join you?' asked Sherlock.

At first, he couldn't answer. He wondered whether this man had really been in the room last night to see his untamed panic. He had a memory of his being there, but he knew he couldn't trust his own mind anymore. But real or not, he knew how he had felt at the sight of him. And how he had felt when he disappeared. Slowly, he nodded.

He turned back to the window and watched Sherlock's reflection in the glass draw nearer, each step tentative, prepared to retreat. Everything about him was so familiar—his long figure, his porcelain face, how his shirt hugged his shoulders, the way he walked across a floor like his shoes weren't even touching it. He still wasn't sure how he felt about it, not even whether he wanted to stare or look away. A part of him felt relief to the point of nausea, another felt anger to the point of affection: he wanted to both strike and embrace the man. He settled, instead, for waiting quietly.

'I told them to switch out your curtains for blue ones,' said Sherlock. His every syllable was an effort in delicacy. When John didn't tell him not to talk or ask him to leave, he was emboldened and spoke again. 'Orange is rather a ghastly colour.'

'The tiles were orange,' said John. He stared at his knees. 'Very clever.'

Sherlock carefully dragged a chair closer. John could tell he was watching him for signs of displeasure at this action. He gave none, but nor could he manage to offer much by way of welcome either. So Sherlock sat.

'I didn't mention the colour of the tiles,' said John. Then he realised. 'Oh. You saw the photographs. The . . . video.'

'Yes. And I was there.'

'In the kitchen.'

'Yes.'

'Then there wasn't much for me to tell you that you hadn't already observed.'

He saw Sherlock's reflection frown. 'Not everything can be observed. What was spoken, for example . . .'

_There now, don't fight._

'. . . indicating not only personal history but future intent . . .'

_It's always better when you don't fight._

'. . . will prove invaluable as we track them . . .'

_You're a dog, John Watson. Just a dog._

'. . . never thought . . . until we . . . help from the . . . kno ca ust L trade . . .'

_Drink up, pet._

_He retched. They cuffed him across the face, lightly the first time, to the sound of guffaws and shouted obsenities and calls of 'bad boy, bad Johnny'. The second strike reverberated like the cracking of a whip and landed him on his back. But they weren't finished.  
_

'John.'

John flinched and dragged his eyes away from where he had been staring sightlessly out the window. Sherlock was standing by his side, mindful not to impose himself in John's direct eye line, and offering him a small paper cup newly filled with water. He realised that he hadn't noticed Sherlock rise from his chair and walk across the room to get, not his mug and ribbed straw, but a paper cup, and fill it with water from the pitcher. He realised, too, how incredibly thirsty he suddenly was. His lips were cracking and his tongue felt heavy. His hand, he discovered, clutched the edge of the armrest as though to keep from falling out of it, and his breathing was laboured. What had just happened? Unlocking his fingers from the wheelchair, he accepted the cup of water and brought it to his lips, trying to breathe normally.

'Are you in much pain?' asked Sherlock.

'All sorts,' said John.

He drank. Each swallow hurt, yet the water soothed.

'Were you . . . here?' John asked. 'Last night?' Sherlock moved to resume his place in the chair. 'I'm not sure if that was . . . real . . . or if it was in my . . .' He gestured to his head.

'I came in when I heard you shout.'

'And you didn't see . . . him?' He needed to hear it one more time.

'No. That wasn't real.'

John sighed out slowly. 'I tore my stitches,' he said. 'Hurt like hell, and I just kept going. _That _was real.' He laughed shortly and without humour. 'Now they say I can't sleep alone. They'll strap me down, but someone's got to keep an eye on the madman.'

'You're not mad.'

'I see things that aren't there, hear voices in my head, think I'm somewhere I'm not. What do you call it?'

'Trauma. We'll get through this, John.'

'We,' John echoed tonelessly. The fingers of one hand curled back around the aluminium cane. The other lifted to his neckline and pulled the hospital gown down so he could see, reflected in the window, the mess of stitches over the grotesque inscription. The discarded bandage was on the floor. 'You know,' he said, 'he didn't tell me what he was carving. I didn't know, not until I got here. Even then, I had to ask. This is the only one I've actually seen for myself, though.'

'John—'

'But I don't know what they mean. _Gifts for Sherlock Holmes_. That's what he called them, that's all he said. A message for you. So maybe, at last, you can tell me what they mean.'

Sherlock looked pained, but answered. 'It was . . . something Moriarty said.'

'When?'

'The day he was acquitted and came to the flat.'

'And touched nothing but an apple,' John recalled.

With a stiff nod, Sherlock said, 'He carved those letters into the apple. He told me he owed me a fall. _I owe you_. And then he left that sign all over the city, reminding me of his promise. I didn't realise, then, how far, and how long, a man could fall.' He shook his head, remorseful. 'I should have told you.'

'Yes,' said John. _Goodbye, John. Then his arms spread like dark wings, wings incapable of flight, and he fell._ John blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the image that suddenly broke into his mind, a blackbird plummeting earthward. He cleared his throat. 'You should have.'

'He told me something else that day, something I long believed true. He said that we were just alike. He and I.'

_You and I, we're not so different._

'. . . that there was only one real difference . . .'

_We're the same._

'. . . the sides we had chosen . . .'

_One man in two different lives._

_Someone was drawing near, casting him in the shadow of a man who hid him from the flickering, fluorescent light. _

_Your loyalty belongs to me, now. Your mind and body are forevermore filled with me_ _._

'John.'

He gasped silently, his stomach muscles clenching unpleasantly. But the kitchen faded, Moran's voice faded, and he was back in the wheelchair. Why was this _happening _to him? Beside him, Sherlock was leaning forward anxiously, a light hand on his shoulder. 'I'm OK,' he whispered.

Sherlock nodded uncertainly and withdrew his hand. Then, he finished his thought: 'What he said to you: it's not true, John. You're nothing like him. And I'm not Moriarty. Something made me different from him. And it was that difference that mattered, in the end.' He rested back, giving John his space. 'I had chosen your side, John. Moriarty, he . . . he called it the side of the angels.'

Their eyes met again in the looking glass of the window. A few droplets of new rain cut across their reflections. 'That's what I thought you were,' said John softly. 'Down there. Where they kept me.' Sherlock looked puzzled, and John, embarrassed, dropped his eyes. 'I thought I was dead,' he explained. 'So when I saw you . . . I thought you were one of them. It made . . . sense.' He licked his sore lips and took another sip from the paper cup. 'Cracked, aren't I?'

It seemed as though Sherlock didn't know what to say to that. So in the end, he said nothing, and for that John was grateful.

* * *

'Yes, very good, come in, Donovan. Take a seat. Mint?'

She declined the mint and, pulling her hands from her pockets, took a seat across from the chief superintendent.

'Know what I have here?' he asked her, laying a hand flat on the opened manila folder on the desk before him. Without giving her the opportunity to hazard a guess, he answered his own question. 'Report compiled by DI Lestrade on the Richard Brook case. The one with his very own signature on the statement that holds Sherlock Holmes accountable for Brook's premeditated murder. And _this_'—he held up a single, typed sheet—'is the retraction.' He regarded Donovan with steely eyes. 'Citing _insufficient evidence_. Well. The evidence was sufficient _three years ago_, was it not?'

Donovan nodded slowly. 'Circumstances and available evidence strongly suggested a murder-suicide, sir,' she said, 'though at the time, we had a rather shoddy understanding of what had transpired on that rooftop or the events that preceded it. Now that we have witness testimony—'

'Of the _killer_.'

'Alleged.'

'I've read the transcript of Mr Holmes' _testimony_,' he said with a snarl. 'Of course he's going to paint himself as some sort of _hero_ performing some sort of _noble_ act. But is there any solid proof of three snipers? Any at all?'

She cocked an eyebrow. 'Watson ID'd Sebastian Moran, a known rogue sniper, who as well as admitted to him he had been pointing a rifle at him on that day with orders to fire. Stubbins didn't deny it when Lestrade accused him of the same. It's not hard evidence, but I'd say that's fairly convincing. Sir.'

Pitts spluttered a little, recuperating his lost territory. 'They could very well have been acting on Holmes' orders. Not Brook's, and certainly not this _Moriarty_.'

Donovan did her damndest not to scowl. 'Watson's testimony fairly well established the existence of a James Moriarty, as it was in Moriarty's name that the kidnapping took place to begin with. Stubbins more or less confirmed it. Holmes is a target, not a suspect.'

'John Watson is not of sound mind, and Sherlock Holmes is a master manipulator.'

'You've been reading _The Sun_.'

'I'm making sense of the evidence. And what doesn't make sense is this: James Moriarty came into existence some four years ago. Before then, there's no record of him. Nothing. He's an _invention_. Richard Brook, however, had a birth certificate, records of schooling, a history of employment, and a host of acquaintances, whom _you_ yourself interviewed. You can't falsify that kind of verification.'

'Holmes has explained—'

'I'll not take the word of a suspected murderer and known fraud! A man does not simply shoot himself to _stick it to_ his enemy! Is _that_ not his contention? That's absurd! Holmes _shot _him. Whatever else was going on up there, whatever business with snipers or suicides, Holmes killed a man, and he must be brought to stand accountable for that. Let him justify himself in court, and let the justice system sort him out. But we here at Scotland Yard are going to do our job. All of Britain is watching us, Donovan, and Sherlock Holmes is making a laughing stock of London's police force. So we are not simply going to let this slide. We're going to do some _proper _detective work. Am I understood?'

Donovan raised her chin. 'We'll see justice done. No criminal walks free, not if I have anything to do with it.'

'That's what I like to hear.' Slapping the folder closed, Pitts handed it to her, saying, 'Greg Lestrade is too close to this. You were the senior officer on the case three years ago, so I'm turning it over to you now. Make this case, Donovan, and you'll make detective.'

'I understand, sir.' She arose. 'Anything else?'

'Just get to work.'

She walked briskly down the hall and around the corner, then straight into Lestrade's empty office. Once there, she closed the door behind herself and settled at the computer where she logged on under Lestrade's name. She typed, pointed, clicked, and typed some more, and while she waited for a new screen to load, she pulled out her phone.

_The Brook case is mine. You  
were right_.

She paused, considering, then finished the text:

_Pitts said he'd make me _  
_detective if I put him away._  
_Tempting._

She set the phone down as a new dialogue box appeared on the monitor. She clicked the button labelled _Activate_. Then her phone glowed.

_Ha ha. Everything set up?_

After a few seconds, the loading bar on the screen filled to capacity. She pressed another button: _Record._

_Up and running. You're_  
_right again. He's number_  
_ten._

She carefully turned up the volume. At first, all she heard was the thrum of white noise, then some shuffling paper and the subdued clacking of computer keys. Then, what she had been waiting for: the phone rang.

'Yes. This is Pitts.' The voice came through clearly. There was a pause as Pitts listened to a response on the other end of the line. Donovan waited with him. 'It's done. Sally Donovan, yes.' Another pause. 'Of course. But until then, find a way to shut Stubbins up.' The phone clicked back into the cradle, and the white noise dominated again.

Her phone went off one more time.

_You can thank Sherlock_  
_for the tip. But I know you_  
_won't, so I'll pass the_  
_message along._  
_GL_

Seconds later, he sent one more text:

_Delete all communications  
from your phone_.

* * *

John knew he wasn't well when his body told him he was starving but recoiled at the thought food. He couldn't bear to place any solid thing against his tongue, or swallow anything more substantial than water.

He knew he wasn't well when he went into the bathroom, alone, and could do nothing, despite the pressure he felt inside his body. He knew he wasn't well when, minutes later, sitting still on the lid of the toilet with the cane across his lap, the motion-sensor light clicked off, casting him into pitch blackness, and he instantly had a panic attack. In a split second, he went from knowing he was in a hospital toilet to believing with absolute certainty that he was back in the freezer, where dimensions were not far different and where the blackness was the same; he even felt the same chill spread across his skin. He knew he wasn't well when his flailing limbs brought the light back on and yet the panic didn't ebb, as if the blackness had gotten inside him and was squeezing his chest so tight he thought his sternum might snap. The nurse found him on the floor in a huddled heap, eyes streaming and gasping for air. He thought he was drowning.

Dr Peabody, in hearing of this, diagnosed him as nyctophobic, a condition John had heard associated only with children.

The nightmares persisted, raging every time he managed to fall asleep, and within a matter of days he grew terrified at the prospect of sleep, knowing that as soon as he succumbed, he would be back there; he would feel unwanted hands touching him in intimate places and in cruel ways; he would feel blades and barbs and binds; he would see blood, abundant as the rains. As night drew nearer, his anxiety increased, the trembling, the nausea, the shortness of breath, and he refused even to attempt to sleep. He was soon diagnosed as hypnophobic. Dr Peabody prescribed medication to help, but when the dosage was too weak, he couldn't sleep; and when it was too strong, he couldn't wake, and he remained trapped inside his own tormented mind, deepening his fears. So he refused the drug altogether, just as he now refused the morphine and antidepressants. Strangely, only one thing seemed to help, and that was Sherlock.

Sherlock began spending his nights in the hospital room, without invitation. He simply came into the room one evening and, as though he belonged there, began fluffing a pillow on the bed nearest John's. 'Awfully flat, this,' he commented. 'I'll have Molly bring us some better ones tomorrow. What is this, _paper?_ A _paper_ pillowcase?'

John, who had just begun to feel the first tendrils of anxiety invade his lungs as night drew nearer, stared at Sherlock in bewilderment, not quite sure what he was doing, half amazed he was even there. There were moments when he didn't seem real, when John was half convinced his imagination was deceiving him again, reinventing Sherlock from old memories and vain wishes, a patchwork quilt, not whole cloth. He didn't trust his own mind. Nevertheless, as he let the fantasy unfold, he found himself responding very practically: 'It's to keep them sterilised. They change them every day.'

'It's a simple enough solution. Wash the pillowcases.'

Then he settled himself onto the bed, shoes off, legs stretched out and hands behind his head. 'When do they bring the jelly?'

In spite of himself, the corner of John's lip twitched into what was almost a grin. He seemed to remember that: John Watson used to grin. Without his noticing, the cold tendrils retreated.

That night, without the aid of drugs, he fell asleep.

* * *

Sherlock, though, did not. He lay down until he was sure John was sleeping. Then he arose, moved to the chair, and pulled out the new mobile Mycroft had set him up with. The phonebook currently had but three numbers: Mycroft's, Lestrade's, and Molly's. He reviewed Lestrade's most recent texts, although he had already committed them to memory, before scrolling through Kitty Riley's most recent article, which she had titled 'Sherlock Holmes is mad, says noted psychiatrist.' As it turned out, Aaron Peabody wasn't a fan.

He was halfway through a long string of readers' asinine comments when he saw John's shoulders slowly hunching, his head dipping. His wrists drew together as he curled into the foetal postion. Swiftly, Sherlock set the phone aside and rose to his feet, coming to the side of the bed just as John's body began to quake. He stopped himself from reaching out and touching him, and instead said his name: 'John.'

John's head twitched, half burying his face in the pillow. His closed eyes scrunched as though in pain, and his breathing turned rapid. A short whimper escaped his throat, muffled by the pillow.

He tried inserting his voice again into whatever reality was present behind those closed eyelids. 'John. You're all right. You're safe, John.'

John's body flinched as though he had been struck. He cried out shortly, then jerked aside, as though from another cuff. Sherlock felt as though he were watching an invisible assailant attacking John, unseen fists landing visible blows. _Damn it! Damn it!_ Again, he restrained the hand that sought to steady him.

'John, wake up. I need you to wake up.'

John began to cry. Between sobs, Sherlock heard him gasp, 'I can't—! Sher—!'

'John. John. Wake up, please. Open your eyes.'

He wasn't expecting it: John's eyes flew open, wild and desperate, the fear as naked as before. The dream was still present before him. Nevertheless, Sherlock dared to reach out then, laying a cautious hand on John's arm, and when he did, John seized it, as though searching for an anchor. Sherlock covered John's clenching hand with his other, to still it, and lowered himself to his knees beside the bed so his eyes came level with John's. He spoke John's name again and watched as the dream slowly melted from before John's sight. His breath came raggedly, but steadied, though his heart continued to race: Sherlock could feel the pulse of it under his fingertips.

'You're safe,' Sherlock said again.

John seemed incoherent. Eyes wet, voice shaking, he whispered, 'Get me out of here, Sherlock. Please. Get me out of here.'

'You're here,' said Sherlock. 'With me. You're not there anymore, you're here.'

'Please, Sherlock, please. I can't breathe. Get me out of here.'

'Here. You mean Barts? You want to leave Barts?' Sherlock asked.

But he didn't seem to hear him, or understand. 'Get me out.' John's eyes bored into his, pleading. 'I can't . . . not anymore. Get me out.'

Maybe he was not fully awake. Maybe he was not making full sense, or perhaps he was speaking from a place unbounded by time or physical reality. _Here_ didn't mean forsaken convents or austere hospitals, but a prison all the same, binding his heart and mind whether here or there or any place beyond. And maybe, come morning, he would not remember any of this—his supplication, Sherlock's answer—but Sherlock answered all the same, devoting himself to John with all the ardour he felt for the only man who had ever called him friend.

'Please.'

'I . . .' Sherlock squeezed his hand tightly. 'I will, John. I promise.'


	29. Chapter 29: The Pistol and the Key

**Chapter 29: The Pistol and the Key**

**NOVEMBER**

The landlord had to let him in. He no longer had a key. From what he could figure, he had lost it somewhere between Grant & Chapman's and the convent. It had probably been kicked down the strange alleyway where they had jumped him, if not lost on the floor of the town car that had carried him off. That is, it had not been in his coat, which the police had found in a corner of the kitchen, nor in any other place in the basement of St Mary's. No matter what had happened to it, the landlord would want to change the locks.

'Rent's paid through the month,' the landlord said as he fitted the master key into the lock. 'That is, if you mean to keep on, you're good 'til the new year.'

The man hoped he would _not_ keep on—that much was clear, even to John, who had always lacked Sherlock's keenly deducing brain. Everything about him spoke discomfort at being near John, from his stiff body language to his awkward conversation. He couldn't quite manage looking John in the eye, although he did seem unable to drag his curious, chary gaze away from the ragged, red stitching on the side of his head, and when he did, it was only to drop his eyes to the cane John leaned on so heavily.

Achieving the second floor had been a long and arduous process, one that left John feeling spent and perspiring and his leg aching miserably. During the climb, he had ignored the landlord, who prattled on only because he was ill at ease, both with the time it took to mount two flights of stairs and with the silence from his mysterious companion; and so he seemed determined to fill that silence with what he supposed was natural conversation. The cold weather. The state of the euro. Manchester United. As if nothing were wrong. Acting as if he and the whole building didn't know John's story—or some version of it anyway—and pretending as though he and some of the tenants had not, in fact, been interviewed by local papers and national reporters about what they knew of John Watson and his past. They didn't know much, of course, and much of what they did know came from the police and Kitty Riley. They knew the woman from 2A had been murdered; they knew her boyfriend had been kidnapped; they knew it was all tied up in the return of Sherlock Holmes.

The landlord cleared his throat as he twisted the key and popped open the door. 'The, erm, family has already come by and cleared away most of her, um, things. Word was, you wasn't getting out of hospital anytime soon.'

_Twenty-four days_, he thought. _It was only twenty-four days._ Though in truth, it probably should have been longer. Had he been the attending physician, he would have advised against release until the patient's dietary habits were more stable, his bowel movements more regular, his physical therapy further along, and his levels of pain under control. But he wasn't critical. He wasn't even in the danger zone anymore. So despite sound medical counsel, he chose to leave, and they had no power to force him to stay. He let the nurse coach him on tending his own wound and changing his own bandages (as though he did not already know how to do these things), accepted his prescriptions, scheduled a future therapy session for his leg, and checked himself out.

But he didn't reply to the landlord's implied apology. He had nothing to say to this man and figured he was doing him a favour by keeping quiet. Besides, as much as the landlord wanted to leave, John wanted him gone. Gripping the cane, he limped into the flat.

The landlord stood nervously in the doorway behind him. 'You, uh . . . you have help coming then, do you?'

'He'll be right up,' said John.

'Right then. I'll leave you to it, shall I? Give a shout if you, you know, need something.'

He heard the footsteps retreating, paces measured so as not too sound too eager to be gone.

John stood alone in the centre of the living room. He felt hollow. The flat was cold, emptied of all the warmth it had once known because she was gone from it. One night there, the next stolen, and so she had never come home, and never would. Her things had been taken away. The sofa, the coffee table, the pictures on the walls, even the bookcase they had assembled together and the antique rocking chair he had bought her for her birthday. All gone. And all that was left behind were the rugs and a folding table he had used as a desk. His work was still scattered across it, just as he had left it, and on the floor beside it, a small stack of his medical texts and magazines. Untouched.

It was as if she had never lived here at all.

He bowed his head and covered his eyes.

Through the open door, he heard footsteps bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He dropped his hand and licked his dried lips, trying to regain composure and remind himself why he was there.

'Damnable card reader,' Sherlock said as he strode into the room, tucking a new credit card into a new wallet before pocketing it. His voice echoed in the austere and vacant space. 'Cabbie had to swipe it six times, and even then the modem moved like molasses . . .'

John felt him come to a stop just over his shoulder, could practically hear the brain humming like a computer processor as he looked around the room. When he spoke again, it was in an undertone, barely loud enough for John to hear and coloured by disapproval. 'They were thorough,' he muttered.

'I can't see her,' said John. His effort to keep his own voice level failed. He felt as though he were sinking; a now-familiar sensation of panic began to overwhelm him, darkening the edges of his vision. 'Sherlock, I need you— You have to do your thing, you have to—' He knew he wasn't making any sense, but he couldn't slow his tongue or will it to make reason. 'Do you see her? I can't see her!'

But Sherlock understood at once. He had always been able to make sense of what to everyone else seemed nonsensical, irrational, irrelevant, or void of meaning. Stepping further into the room, he turned slowly on the spot, his eyes raking. John watched him, desperate, aching for him to say something.

'The curtains, John,' said Sherlock, pointing to the front window. 'Twill damask. Homemade. She made them herself. The brown and gold threads match the rugs, which can't be more than six months old, given the tread in the pile, so chances are she bought the rugs to go under the new coffee table—I saw the gloss finish on that table, still shiny, likely bought new within the last year—and then made the curtains after. The table, the rugs, the curtains, they were for you, for the home she was making for the both of you. Am I right?'

John nodded frantically, eyes fixed on the curtains and remembering. She had asked him what he thought of the fabric—the colour or the pattern, he didn't recall—and he hadn't really cared but told her he loved them anyway. He had helped her hang them.

Sherlock crouched by the window, fingers running along the sill. 'Dirt. Not just dirt. _Potting soil_. She kept the herb garden here, an ideal location, given the sunlight: This window faces east.' He picked up a thin, dry leaf that had fallen and rolled it between two fingers, breaking it to release its fragrance. He sniffed. 'Rosemary. She was a thoughtful and practical woman, so she never planted anything that wouldn't be useful. So she probably cooked with this. Maybe with roasts—'

'Yes.'

'—potatoes—'

'Yes.'

'—pastas . . .'

'Yes. Yes, she did.' John blinked rapidly to clear his vision and nodded in such a way that begged Sherlock to continue.

'A stain of red wine,' said Sherlock, crossing the room to where his discerning eyes had spotted a slight discoloration on the hardwood floor leading to the kitchen. 'If it were blood, it would have turned brown, but this is more purple than brown. So red wine it is. A quick slosh, not noticed for what, an hour? Giving it time to soak down into the wood so that even a good scrubbing wouldn't get it out. She was bringing you a glass.'

'No,' said John.

'No?'

'I was bringing it to her.'

Sherlock straightened and faced John squarely. His eyes were soft, grey as the rains. 'Of course. You never drink alone. So you carried two glasses, one for you, one for her. Probably not very full. What caused you to tip the glass?'

John looked past him, his eyes fallen to the red stain. 'She caught me by surprised, just there. She kissed me. And I forgot I was holding something.'

For a moment, he was back there, back then. Mary's light fingers trailed up his jaw line and around his head, drawing him near. Her parted lips found his, held him close. She tasted like cinnamon and salt, smelled like vanilla and pencil shavings. His head swam with sudden intoxication, and a charge of electricity enlivened his skin, quickened his blood. He kissed her hungrily, needing to touch her back, hold her just as close, fingers on her hips, up her back, in her hair. He moved; the glass tipped.

'Can you see her, John?'

John wiped the heel of his hand against his cheeks. He wondered what would become of the curtains. But the wine stain would last. Even after he was gone, even though no one would know its importance, it would last. At last, he nodded. 'Thank you,' he whispered.

* * *

It was obvious John couldn't stay in the flat. What was less obvious was where he would go. Baker Street, Sherlock had thought, until he mentioned to John, one morning following another bad night, that Mrs Hudson had insisted that Sherlock move back in, just as soon as the current tenants vacated, and John's only response had been, 'Well. It suited you well enough before.'

He never did ask John directly if he wanted to come back. For all his usual uncensored forthrightness, he couldn't seem to find the words. More honestly, he feared to hear the declination. What reason did he have to think that John was at all interested in returning to Baker Street, after all? It was one thing for Sherlock to resume residence there. Having been dead, his London existence had not evolved. Rather, it was as though it had been put on indefinite pause, waiting for him to take it up again. He had never expected to, of course, but then, here he was. Conversely, John's life had morphed. Though he had moved out of 221B, he remained in London, shed the man he had been along with most all of his material possessions, and moulded a new life from hard clay. That life, like his old one, was now in pieces. He couldn't stay in the flat on Porters Avenue. But that didn't mean he could return to Baker Street.

The day before John was released, Sherlock learnt that he had booked himself a hotel room, though he did not learn it from John himself. He overheard it when passing Lestrade and Donovan in the hallway where they happened to be discussing who would be on security detail at the Caswell Hotel.

'Caswell Hotel?' he said, coming to an abrupt halt. 'What about it? Security for what?'

'For John,' said Lestrade; his face barely hid his surprise that Sherlock didn't already know. 'He's being released in the morning.'

'Did he not tell you?' said Donovan.

Sherlock ignored her. 'Released? They're letting him go?' He knew John had been due for another psychiatric assessment that morning, but in all honesty he didn't think they'd clear him. He was still suffering nightmares when sleeping and intrusive images when awake. More importantly, he was still refusing antidepressants.

'I don't like it either, but John insisted on it,' said Lestrade. 'He says he can take care of himself well enough now, and that he's no better off here than he would be at home. Well, I say _home_, but—'

'But he's not staying on Porters Avenue,' Sherlock finished, frowning. 'A _hotel_.'

'Just until he can find a new flat, he says,' said Lestrade.

'Don't think we're just letting him walk out of here,' said Donovan. 'We know the threat against him, and we're not taking it lightly. There'll be police escort from Barts, security at the hotel . . .'

Sherlock had stopped listening and spun on his heel, leaving her sentence trailing. He retraced the familiar path to room 319, knocked sharply, and entered without bothering to listen for an invitation.

John was in bed, the curtain pulled halfway around, and a nurse was helping him change the bandages on his thighs. Both men looked up in surprise at his sudden appearance.

'Really, Mr Holmes, a little privacy,' began the nurse.

'It's fine,' said John shortly, although Sherlock couldn't say that John looked particularly pleased to see him. Over the course of weeks in hospital, John's regard of him had consistently wavered between hot and cold. At his most lucid, the rational side of him seemed to dictate emotional distance, from everyone, but from Sherlock most of all. This was John's normal state of mind during the day, although those days, like his nights, were often punctuated with sudden and unexpected lapses into emotional turmoil: fits of anger, bouts of sadness, attacks of fear. Few could restore him to a sound state of mind, and none with as much success as Sherlock. But once accomplished, John invariably sent him away and retreated inside himself. Sherlock was getting used to this. But he couldn't deny the sting.

Sherlock stopped himself from launching into a vitriolic rant about the Caswell Hotel; then he bit his tongue to stem the impending insult against hospital staff that would release a man still suffering nightly dreams of torture into his own, solitary care. Finally, he stopped himself from blurting out his frustration at learning of John's plans after Lestrade had, after _Donovan_. Consequently, he stood at the foot of the bed, mouth moving but words halted in his throat.

'Something you want to say?' John asked without making eye contact. Sherlock saw the shredded, scabbed skin disappear beneath the fold of a bandage as John wrapped his own leg, the nurse standing by in clear anxiety at not being able to do it himself.

Sherlock switched tactics. 'I've just come from Baker Street,' he said.

'Have you.'

'Mrs Hudson, she said her last tenants left in something of a huff midday yesterday, and would I like to start moving my things?' He smiled, a small smile, but John wasn't looking for it, intent on his own leg. 'More than three years, and she's kept many of my old things in that basement flat. Sentiment.' He looked for a quirk in John's lips, the hint of a smile, the shadow of fondness for old times. But John's face was stone. So Sherlock continued: 'Books. The kettle. My duvet. The bison skull. All of it. And our armchairs, of course. Mrs Hudson was thoughtful enough to cover them with sheets, so they're not the least bit dusty.'

John was slowly unwinding the bandages from the other thigh, the one still dressed in plaster below the knee. The nurse, sensing the tension in the air and clearly uncomfortable, was doing his damndest to keep his eyes on John's progress and stop them from flitting between the two men. Sherlock, however, had already dismissed him as being irrelevant and forged ahead.

'I've placed them where they were before. Books, too, organised just the same. Everything like it was. Or nearly. You see, the upstairs bedroom lies empty.'

John winced. A scab had broken since the last wrapping, and the wound had bled again. The blood had dried to the bandage, so when John pulled it back, a bit of new skin tore anew. The nurse was ready with a medicated cream. He breathed laboriously through gritted teeth.

'John . . .'

'You'll have to place an advert, I guess,' said John, slapping the nurse's hands away and applying the cream himself.

The idea repulsed him, but he said nothing. John's decision was clear.

Now they worked in separate rooms, John in the bedroom, Sherlock in the kitchen, packing shirts, trousers, and toiletries, dishes, glasses, and cutlery, into crates, boxes, and bins. A crew would come by later to haul it all away, donations to a charity shop. It wouldn't take long—there wasn't much left—but they worked slowly, neither eager to be gone, though both hated being there.

All John retained for himself fitted into a small roller suitcase with room to spare. Sherlock imagined it amounted to shaving cream, shirts, trousers, and socks. He had become, in essence, a dispossessed man.

Because they worked apart, Sherlock was deliberate in making occasional noise—clapping two plates together at one juncture, letting a cupboard fall shut with a bang ninety seconds later—just to remind John he was there, to stave off the feeling of panic that would surely arise if he thought he was alone. The hospital stay had taught them both that as much as John craved solitude, he couldn't entirely handle it.

And during his quieter spells, Sherlock listened intently for John's subtler sounds: footsteps crossing a room, the soft whine of a closing door, and the hush from the faucet as John sought another drink of water from the bathroom sink.

But a few minutes had passed since Sherlock had heard anything. Mere minutes, yes, but he was disquieted. He left the kitchen and turned to the hallway, at the end of which lay the master bedroom on the left, and directly ahead, the bathroom. The door to the bathroom stood open, and Sherlock saw John on a knee by the sink, his arm reaching into the cupboard below, crooked just so, as though he were fiddling with the pipes. Sherlock watched uncertainly. John's head was angled away, not seeing him. Then, a _clank_, as he dislodged a solid metal something. From its hiding place, John pulled a pistol.

With a strained effort that showed in his furrowed brow, John pushed himself to his feet. There he stood, over the sink, eyes steady on the gun resting in his hands.

The world froze, but the seconds kept ticking like the beat of a heart. John stared at the gun; Sherlock stared at John. Then, slowly, John lifted his head to see Sherlock standing at the end of the hall, watching him with bated breath. He seemed not the least surprised at being watched. In John's hard, blue eyes, Sherlock saw the fire of something he had not seen in more than three years, and it stopped his heart cold: _challenge_.

_Don't you dare stop me_.

Sherlock didn't move.

John's attention returned to the pistol. His hands held it with as much familiarity as Sherlock's had once held his violin. Adept fingers had not forgotten their training: He hit the magazine release as if in old habit. Checked it. Satisfied, he rammed it back inside the grip. Checked the safety. Then, without sparing another glance on Sherlock, he tucked the pistol into the back of his trousers and retreated once again to the bedroom.

They exchanged no words. Quietly, Sherlock returned to the kitchen.

* * *

They found themselves together again in the bare sitting room, where Sherlock stacked the last box near the door and John set his small suitcase. The curtains had been taken down, the rugs rolled up, the folding table folded. Wearied from so much time spent on his feet and other exertions, John sought the chair beside the folding table. Since their arrival, he had paled considerably.

'The landlord will let in the moving crew, will he?' asked Sherlock, speaking for the first time in more than an hour. 'Feeling at all peckish? I thought I saw a cafe just a couple of streets away.' And it was cold. Soup would be good. John could handle soup.

'I'm going to stay,' said John. He sat stiffly, one hand on his knee, the other wrapped around his side as though feeling for the break in the rib and holding it together. 'A little while longer.'

'We can do that,' said Sherlock, wondering if John would take to the idea of ordering Chinese.

'On my own.'

'Oh.' For a few seconds, Sherlock chewed his tongue. 'All right.' He sought to make eye contact, desperate to deduce what unspoken, untranslatable thoughts might be sprouting up like choking weeds behind John's stoic mask. But John wasn't looking at him. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the wine stain. 'Do you need—?'

'Nothing. Thank you.' If there had been any passion behind the words, they would have been curt. As it was, however, they were dry, almost brittle. Nevertheless, they were uncompromising.

'I can ring the police escort,' said Sherlock, loathe to leave him alone, 'for when you're ready. Lestrade will want—'

'I'll do it myself,' said John. 'Thank you.'

His words were as good as a dismissal, but still, Sherlock found it difficult to will his feet to move. _Look at me, John. One glance._ But John had a will as unbendable as an iron rod, and his eyes were riveted on the floor. Sherlock turned stiffly toward the door, and when he reached it, he opened it slowly, hoping to be called back. But John did not call him back.

It was happening. Sooner than he expected. The crossroads. And he knew he had to leave. There was only one thing left for him to do. So before he passed through the door, he reached a hand inside his trouser pocket, withdrew a small, gold key, and set it on a bare ledge near the door. He wondered if John saw him do it, but he didn't look back to find out.

* * *

John Watson sat alone in the cold flat as the minutes turned to hours, but he felt time not as an unwinding thread but as slivers in his heart. The heat had been turned off, as had all the lights. The only illumination now came from the window, but the world was November-grey, and darkening. His hands, resting in his lap, loosely held the pistol.

He wondered what sort of man he was.

Soldier, or doctor?

Warrior, or healer?

Or neither.

_'My John will be a doctor,' his mother tells the nurses as she lies in hospital, only days away from the grave. 'He says he wants to save people. To stop their hurt. That's my John.'_

But he hadn't saved _her_, not from the disease that ravaged her body and stole her breath and left him motherless at fifteen. Nor had he saved his father from the subsequent depression that drove him daily to the bottle and nightly to the pub, that three years later manifested as cirrhosis and finally liver failure. Nor had he saved Harry from the same dependency. As time passed, the hurt in his family had only deepened. There was no healing from that.

_'Our John will be a soldier,' his grandmother tells the orderly, during his last visit, only days before the stroke. 'He says he wants to save people. To make them free. That's our John.'_

But he hadn't saved Stephens from that explosion, or Davis from that sniper fire, or McLaughlin from that ambush. No, instead, he had taken a bullet to the shoulder. They sent him away, and behind him, a war raged on. No land was at peace, and no man was truly free.

The nurses had always said he had good 'bedside manner', a calming presence, a warm smile. His was a healer's countenance, an indiscernible glow, felt rather than seen. He had been told that patients often requested him, preferred him. _Dr Watson always knows just the right things to say_, he once overheard one doctor tell another. _It's a gift, that_. His humility had suffered a minor blow that day, because he believed it was true.

True, that was, for strangers in need. But for those he loved, his words were useless. Always, when he needed them, sincerely needed them, words failed him.

No pleading words, no calming presence, no warming smile had stopped Harry drinking. And though he knew, now, that nothing he could have said would have stopped Sherlock from falling on that fateful day, it didn't negate more than three years of agonising over what he _might _have said to get him to step back from that ledge.

Three years of agony over one man. Three years of repeating to himself _if I had only, if I had only._ It was a hell that would never end, not if he persisted in this waking nightmare that was his cosmic joke of a life. What might he have said to _him_, to Moran, that Mary might have been spared? Surely something, _something_. Something he could have offered, some lie he could have told, some truth he could have revealed, _something_. A truer warrior would have been able to protect her. A truer healer would have been able to save her.

His fingers shook on the gun; it rocked in his hands.

For days (or was it years?), he had felt that he was hurtling through space toward this inevitable conclusion—a man alone, sitting in a hollow home, his only companion a lethal weapon. Not a choice, but a fate, certain and inescapable. Obvious. So let him speed toward it, it toward him. A grand collision, this sorry end.

Though not one he could have enacted while in hospital. No, not there. So get out. _Lie_ to the doctors, to the nurses. Say you're feeling stronger every day. Pretend to eat. Don't fuss over physical therapy. _Lie_ to the shrink. Say you want to move forward, you want to put this wretchedness behind you, even though you know, you _know_, it's right there, right there, right in front of your goddamn face every time you look in the mirror. There's no moving past despair. So get out.

They'll believe you. Just so they won't have to fret over you, they'll believe you.

And yet. _He_ won't. He knows. And he doesn't believe a word.

John's eyes shifted to the key.

He wavered.

Sherlock knew what he was planning. Somehow, he knew it. Because he was Sherlock _sodding_ Holmes. And yet, he had not railed against John's leaving the hospital. Nor had he said a word when he saw the gun. All he had done was leave the key.

Tears slipped down his face beyond his notice. His shoulders quaked, and his hand tightened around the gun; one finger lay on the trigger. And yet. His eyes were fixed on the key as if it were the bloody North Star.

His finger tapped the trigger, but his eyes were on the key.

* * *

Lestrade checked his phone again, half expecting to have missed a call. The police escort had followed behind the cab Sherlock and John had taken to Porters Avenue and had ensured that both men entered the building safely, but it wasn't expected to wait around while they saw to the business of clearing away an old life. 'I'll call,' Sherlock had told him, 'when we're ready to go.'

It had been several hours now, and no call.

He had wanted to go along, to help in whatever way he could. At least, he figured he might be more useful to John than Sherlock. When had the man ever helped someone _move_? The mental image of him packing boxes and hauling furniture was almost laughable. But wheels had been set in motion at New Scotland Yard; an engine had been stoked; and the train was barrelling toward an inevitable conclusion.

'Sir?' Donovan popped her head around the corner.

He dropped the phone into his pocket. 'Sergeant?'

'It's now. We're ready to move.' She tugged on the sleeves of her jacket, her only outward sign of nerves.

He took a deep breath and nodded. 'Let's go.'

They fell in step with one another.

'Teams are in place?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do you have the warrant on hand?'

She pulled it out of an inside pocket of her jacket.

'And he's in his office?'

'It won't be his for much longer,' she said grimly.

They rounded the corner. At the end of the hall, Lestrade saw a constable waiting near the chief superintendent's office. When he saw Lestrade and Donovan striding closer, he clicked the side of his com and spoke into it. The signal had been given. Seconds later, just as they were nearing the office, Detective Superintendent Gregson appeared. Lestrade caught his eyes, they exchanged grim nods, and together they entered the office, Donovan close behind.

Pitts looked up from his paperwork with an annoyed, wide-eyed expression, bordering on rage. 'Gregson, Lestrade, what's the meaning of this—?'

'Anthony Pitts,' said Supt Gregson, stepping aside so that Donovan could come forward and present the warrant, 'you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Everett P Stubbins . . .'

Placing two hands on the desk, Pitts slowly rose to his feet. 'Is this some sort of sick joke?'

'. . . for conspiracy to commit murder in the case of Mary S Morstan . . .'

'This is ludicrous. Ludicrous! Lestrade, you bastard, what have you done?'

'. . . and for conspiring in the abduction and torture of John H Watson . . .'

'Get out of my office!'

'. . . you have the right to silence . . .'

'Out! I am an officer of the law—!'

'You are also herewith stripped of your title and your badge,' said DI Lestrade. 'You will be escorted from the premises by the Metropolitan Police and held in a secure facility until further notice. Should you desire representation—'

'You're damn right, I'll have representation, and I'll sue you all for false arrest! Sally. Sgt Donovan. Don't tell me you've been taken in by this. Lestrade's an insubordinate, you _know_ it. There's no evidence against _me_. Sherlock Holmes put him up to this!'

Donovan stepped closer to the chair she had occupied, that night when Pitts had given her the Watson case. Reaching beneath it, she extracted the wire she had planted at that time and held it up to her face for him to see. 'Self-incrimination really is the most damning sort,' she said.

Pitts face contorted. '_Bitch_.'

'Detain him, boys,' said Supt Gregson, and a team of constables appeared in the office, seizing Pitts' arms and cuffing his wrists.

'You traitor, you cunt of a copper—'

Lestrade took Donovan's arm and pulled her aside, stepping between her and Pitts. 'I'm dragging you out of here myself,' he growled. Then he dislodged one of the constables from Pitts' side and seized his elbow with force. 'Let's go.'

They jostled Pitts out of the office and marched him down the hall, four officers in front, Lestrade and another on either side, and two officers, Gregson, and Donovan behind. Men and women froze in the hallway to watch them pass. They stepped outside of their offices, paused their conversations, and stared with unabashed astonishment. Already, they had seen Lestrade, a detective inspector, taken into custody, then exonerated; they had seen nine others, lesser officers, arrested on charges of conspiracy and obstruction. Because of this, suspicions coursed through the Yard, deep as a well, and trust among colleagues and friends was severely compromised; but the _chief superintendent_?

'You want to know what John Watson suffered? Just a taste?' Lestrade hissed in Pitts' ear as they stood in the lift. He readjusted his grip on Pitts' elbow, grinding his fingers into the bone to make Pitts squirm. 'You're going to spend _the rest of your life_ in prison, you miserable son of a bitch, so you can bet your arse you'll find out.'

Some of the constables in the lift exchanged quick glances, but Supt Gregson pretended not to be listening. Donovan folded her arms with satisfaction.

The lift doors slid open, and Lestrade roughly hauled Pitts forward. One of the officer's coms crackled, and he announced, 'Car's ready to take him away for booking.' Lestrade nodded curtly his acknowledgment.

They exited the Yard through the front doors where a police car idled, ready to take him away.

As they neared it, Lestrade heard his text alert sound in his pocket. _Excellent timing, Sherlock_, he thought drily. With his free hand, he extracted the mobile and checked the screen. The message was incoming from Watson.

It was only in the split second after he hit the screen to retrieve the message that he remembered: He had programmed John's new number into his phonebook under _John W_. Not _Watson_.

His heart stilled as he read the single word of the text message:

_Bang._

It happened in the blink of an eye: the air-rending _crack_, the blast of blood, brain, and bone, and suddenly Pitts' was flung out on the pavement, his face a crater of gore, and Lestrade laid out beside him, still gripping his arm.

'_Cover! Take cover!_'

Someone was shouting, people on the street were screaming, running, but Lestrade couldn't move.

'Sniper on Broadway! Sniper on Broadway! Do you copy? We need an AFO unit here, _now_.'

'Officer down! Officer down!'

'He's taken out Pitts. Suspect and officer down!'

_I'm not dead_, thought Lestrade. But he lay motionless, and his face dripped with Pitts' warm blood. Flakes of bone stuck in his hair.

'Sir! Lestrade!'

Sally Donovan seized him by the front of the coat and dragged him away from Pitts' body, into the shadow of the police car. At last, the shock ebbed enough for feeling to return to his limbs. He pushed himself up into a seated position, pressing his back up against the car. Some metres away lay Pitts.

'Are you hurt?' she shouted above the din. When he didn't answer, she shook his arm roughly from where she crouched beside him. 'Lestrade! Are you hurt?'

'I'm not hurt,' he said, dazed.

'It came from the north. Northwest. I'm sure of it.'

'They knew,' said Lestrade. 'Somehow, they knew we were arresting him. Moving him. They knew! So they shut him up.'

Seeing that he wasn't injured, Donovan had her phone out and was requesting assistance—a medical unit, an AFO team, lockdown on Broadway, securing the Yard—all those things he should have been doing himself. But Lestrade had one objective that trumped all others.

He pressed his mobile to his ear. 'Send a unit to 116 Porters. Secure John Watson!'

* * *

Sherlock sought distraction. This resulted only in his pacing from one end of 221B to the other. Mrs Hudson, hearing him from her flat below and thinking he might be in want of company, had already appeared twice, and had twice been shouted from the room. In his state of intense apprehension, he had no patience for her, not today, not when nearly three hours had passed and he had heard nothing. He had been so sure, _so sure_. Otherwise, he never would have left.

But if something had happened, he would know that, too. The landlord would have heard. The police would have been called. Lestrade would have called _him_.

He soon found himself rustling about in the kitchen, filling the electric kettle and setting it to boil. He pulled teacups from as yet still-packed boxes, a teapot, spoons. But his hands were shaking, and when he finally realised that he had unpacked _two_ teacups, he was seized by a fit of horror and rage. He grabbed one up and, with a shout, hurled it across the kitchen, where it smashed against the wall and rained down onto the lino. Breathing hard, he abandoned the kitchen and threw himself onto the sofa.

_Give him a choice,_ he had thought. _Give the man who believes there is no other way out just that—another way._ But Sherlock couldn't compel him, or it was no choice at all. If John was forced to Baker Street, to therapy, to all those places everyone deemed best for him, none of it would erase all that had happened, and John would continue to feel disempowered, trapped, buffeted on all sides by forces determined to forge his path. And then, the first time he found himself alone, really alone, he would see only one road before him, and he would take it.

No, he needed a crossroads. If he were truly to survive, he needed to enact his own autonomy, and he could do no such thing without a choice. He already held the gun. So Sherlock had left the key. He had provided another way.

He steepled his fingers beneath his chin, thinking. Fearing he had made a terrible mistake. An internal clock kept running. Ten more minutes. He would wait only ten more minutes.

Across the room, his mobile sounded.

Sherlock leapt off the sofa and flew across the room. In his scramble to answer the call, he nearly dropped the mobile. But his eye caught the caller ID just as he answered, and his heart sank a little.

'Yes.'

'Sherlock!' Lestrade's voice on the other line was a shout. In the background, he heard sirens. 'Thank god!'

'What's happening?' Sherlock stood straight and rigid. Bracing.

'John wasn't answering his phone.'

'Wasn't answering . . .' Sherlock repeated hollowly.

'Are you two all right? I have a unit on its way.'

'I'm on Baker Street,' said Sherlock. 'John . . . he's not with me.'

'_What?_'

'He's on Porters.'

'Sherlock! You _left_ him?'

'What's going on, Lestrade?'

'Pitts is dead.'

'_What?_'

'_Dead_, Sherlock! We arrested him, and the moment we stepped outside the Yard, he was taken out. Sniper rifle. They were waiting for him!'

Sherlock spun in place, his mind whirling frantically.

'God, Sherlock, if they know where John is—!'

Sherlock ended the call and shoved the mobile in his pocket. He lunged at the desk, where he had tossed his coat and scarf, snatched them both up, spun toward the door, and—

His feet stopped dead under him. John stood in the open doorway.

He leant upon his cane. His cheeks were flush with cold, and with the exertion of climbing the seventeen steps. In his distracted state, Sherlock had not heard the front door open, nor the creak in the stairs. Now, however, he observed everything: John had taken a bus to get there. With all the stops, it must have taken thirty or forty minutes. A crowded bus. John had been made to stand nearly the whole way—his left shirt-sleeve was still hitched a little further outside the sleeve of his coat from where he had stretched to hold onto the rail above his head. He had brought nothing within him. No suitcase. Only the cane.

Slowly, John lifted a hand to show Sherlock the small, gold key he had left behind. For a moment, Sherlock thought he was returning it, and he was on the verge of refusing to accept, of saying _keep it_. But then, without a word, John slipped the key into the front pocket of his trousers. A small token to be sure, but to Sherlock, no gesture had ever meant so much. John swallowed; his head twitched as though about to speak, but his lips remained a closed, straight line, and he watched Sherlock as though asking what would happen next.

So Sherlock stepped forward. His arms spread, lifted, and encircled John. The response was slow, but when it came, it was certain. John leant his body into Sherlock's. A hand came up around Sherlock's back, then the other as John let the cane clatter to the floor. They held each other securely, for how long neither knew, for Sherlock had stopped counting seconds the moment John appeared in the flat, and John now counted only days.

When they parted, John averted his eyes; they shone wet in the dim lamplight.

'Kettle's just boiled,' said Sherlock thickly.

John nodded, unable to speak.

Sherlock bent over to retrieve John's cane, and, touching his arm once more, passed it back to him. Then he withdrew to the kitchen. As he pulled another teacup from the box, he extracted the mobile from his pocket. Even as he texted the good detective inspector, he watched out of the corner of his eye as John limped across the room toward his old armchair and gently sat himself down.

_John safe with me_  
_on Baker Street._  
_SH_

He poured the hot water into the teapot and let the tea seep. Then he prepared the tray with pot and cups. When all was ready, he carried it into the sitting room. There, he served John a cup and settled himself in his old chair, which he hadn't touched since his return.

They sat in silence, mourning together the things they both had lost.

And yet.


	30. Chapter 30: Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**DECEMBER**

Shortly after the first light snowfall of the season, just as he was stepping from bakery with a Swiss bun between his teeth, Greg Lestrade was abducted off the pavement.

'So is this a _thing_ with you?' he asked Mycroft Holmes twenty minutes later as he sucked sugar crystals from his fingertips in the Stranger's Room of the Diogenes Club. He didn't bother to mask his annoyance.

'We have things to say to one another,' said Mycroft, turning from the fireplace and swirling a splash of brandy in a snifter. He cut an undeniably impressive figure against the glowing hearth, and, what with the three-piece suit, he looked like a cross between an aristocrat from yesteryear and a Bond villain.

Lestrade made a show of pulling out his mobile and checking for missed calls. 'Hm. Battery's fully charged. Any reason you couldn't phone?'

Mycroft smiled his close-lipped smile but didn't respond to the sarcasm. 'I read in the morning paper that you have arrested the cabbie.'

'Anton Willoughby,' said Lestrade. 'He came quietly enough.'

'Small fish.'

'Still a criminal. And I'll do whatever it takes to see that each and every one of the buggers is made to answer for what he's done, no matter how small a role he played. I'm frankly tired of our captures being taken out before we can question and try them. We've got this one under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Granted, he doesn't seem to know _much_, but all the same, he's culpable in all that's happened.'

'How did you find him?'

'Working off John's description. The man really was a cab driver, not just posing as one. Had a bit of a job working as a hired man on the side, though, as it turned out. Once we had secured the warrants to subpoena the records of the London Black Cab company, pinning down the most likely suspect was easy: the Yorkshire accent and busted nose were something of a giveaway. Then John gave us positive ID when we showed him a photo. Bloke never supposed that John would make it—though he's not exactly forthcoming with what it was he _was _told would happen next to the man he abducted—which is why he just carried on with his day job. But that's the thing, isn't it? John's living to tell the tale was never part of the plan. But he did, and he saw and heard all sorts of things he never should have. Bad news for Moriarty's lot.'

'Or rather, bad news for John,' said Mycroft. 'He may know _too_ much. A man like that is essentially a walking target.'

'I'm trying to keep a positive outlook on things, Mycroft,' said Lestrade wearily. 'Better to know something than nothing. Better to _act_, and catch these piranhas in a tight net before they can do more harm, even if it is just one little fish.' But he sighed. 'Though, most days, finding them feels like hunting down a single fish in a wide sea, and here I am, trying to empty the Channel, one bucketful at a time.'

'Then it's time I gave you a bigger bucket.' Mycroft picked up an envelope from a table and dropped it in Lestrade's lap.

'What's this?'

'Access codes,' he said. '_Direct_ and untraceable access to top secret government records, Level 2 clearance sites, black-out CCTV uplinks, and both archived and ongoing black-ops mission tracking.'

Lestrade froze with his hand on the tab, staring with uncomprehending eyes at Mycroft Holmes.

'Excuse me?'

'Just a handful of tools we're going to need to track and pin these people. You're working for me now, detective inspector.'

'For . . . you.' He shook his head to clear it. 'You mean, for Home Office? MI5? MI6? Or do you mean for _you_ you?'

'Not MI5. Not MI6. Strictly speaking, Lestrade, you will have no official association with the government whatsoever, and you and I will both deny this conversation ever took place. You will continue your day job, solve cases with Sgt Donovan, report to the newly instated Chief Superintendent Gregson, and give those little press conferences I know you love so well. But off the books and whenever I need you, you will be working for me. You can start by combing through some top secret files on known and operating assassins, both international and home-grown. Then we'll move on to remotely retracing Sherlock's sojourn through Eastern Europe and Asia. I trust I can count on your discretion.'

'Is this _legal_?'

'Legality doesn't come into it.'

'Jesus, Mycroft, what is it you _do_?'

There was a loud pause in the room. Then Mycroft turned back to the fire. 'There is a monster out there, Lestrade,' he said, 'a beast in the form of a crime syndicate more vast, intricate, and dangerous than either of us know. Though its creator is dead, the beast is not slain. You see, when the head was cut off, many more sprung up in its place, men and women both brilliant and dangerous. We mean to find them. By _we_, I mean . . . my people. But as you have had the great misfortune to learn, we can't always trust our own.'

'And you don't trust yours.'

'Naturally not. There are few people in this world, inspector, _very_ few, who merit my full trust. There's you—try not to look so codfished, it's unbecoming—there's John, and then . . . well, there's Sherlock. Brilliant and dangerous himself, in his own way, and frightfully unpredictable, but I trust him all the same, God help me. And that's where things get, in the modern vernacular, tricky.'

'What do you mean?'

'Simply because of who he is, because of his nature and his compulsion to solve puzzles and crimes, my brother attracted the attention—the curiosity, and the ire—of James Moriarty, master crime architect and evil genius. That attention did not die with the man. Sherlock has become a prime target of Moriarty's syndicate because where Moriarty perished, Sherlock survived. So you can imagine how they must view him as a threat. Likely, he is unaware of just how many eyes on however many heads are fixed on him. I mean to find out, with your help. Obviously, he's in a rather precarious position. What's worse, he's pulled John Watson with him into the spotlight, under the magnifying glass, behind the crosshairs.' He shook his head, pitying. 'Sherlock should have accepted my offer to assist with the rent, all those years ago, and so nullify his need for a flatmate. He should have stayed aloof. Aloof, and alone. It would have been better for them both.'

'That's a tad unfair,' said Lestrade. 'You said it yourself: John was the best thing that ever happened to him.'

'That's when I thought him dead and I had believed myself at fault. John made him happy in a way I didn't believe Sherlock _could_ be happy. He finally knew what it was like to be called someone's friend, and it meant something to him. Now, it means too much. Too much hinges on it. John is a liability.'

'John is an _asset_. He's changed Sherlock for the better.'

'At what cost to himself?'

'Mycroft, _you_ can't determine whether it was worth it to him. Only John can do that. But you can't deny that, because of him, Sherlock is a different man than he was before they ever met.'

'People don't really change, Greg. The good and bad inside a man are constantly battling, and though the balance of his dual natures may shift, one side giving way so the other may dominate for a time, he is fundamentally unchanged from one day to the next. At his core, Sherlock is still the same brilliant but self-righteous, self-interested man he always was. So was his rescuing John really about _John_, and John's happiness? Or was it about his own?'

'You're wrong. I'm sorry, Mycroft, but you are. I know I'm not as intelligent and I don't spin words as expertly as you do, but I know this much: You're wrong about him. And about John. Whatever it is between them, whatever it was or becomes, Sherlock cares for John far above himself. Since he's come back, I've seen him at some pretty low and frightening points, each time born out of his fear for John. I don't pretend to know him better than you, but there was no doubt in my mind that if he could have exchanged places and made John's misery his own, he would have done, in a heartbeat. He still would.'

'Yes. Like I said, John has become a liability.' Seeing Lestrade's continued frustration, Mycroft said, 'You misunderstand me, it seems. Perhaps, if I could reverse time, I would go back and ensure that Sherlock and John had never met and spare them both. But it's done. It's happened. They are part of each other's lives now, for good or ill, and as such, I would never take it upon myself to remove John Watson _now_. But you've seen it for yourself, Greg. When Sherlock is overcome with emotion, his brainpower takes a nosedive. He becomes reactive, and less rational. Sentiment is a terrible disadvantage, to all but especially to him.'

Lestrade frowned. In a short period of time, he had come to greatly admire this man, and he had long believed that he was, in many ways, a more socially well-adjusted man than his brilliant little brother. Clear-headed, reasonable, pragmatic. He had once thought of Mycroft as more _human_. But now, to hear him speak of love—_sentiment_, he called it, but what else could he have meant?—as a weakness and a liability made him seem even colder and more emotionally isolated than Sherlock had ever been. It may have been Sherlock's intelligence that found John, but it was his love that saved him. Could Mycroft really not see it? Could his measure of his own brother really be so skewed? And could he not see that it was his _own_ love for Sherlock, and the fear of losing him again, that made him utter such nonsense now? Unexpectedly, he felt a great surge of pity for Mycroft Holmes.

'This is where you come in,' Mycroft continued, ignoring Lestrade's look of disapprobation. 'Sherlock thinks he can outsmart the beast.' Mycroft snorted, a sound very unflattering to him. 'As if _cleverness_ were an appropriate weapon against a tooth and claw. He thinks he alone can slay the dragon. He cannot, and he'll kill himself trying. But oh, he _will_ try. For the sake of vengeance as much as for the thrill of the game. I want you to look after him.'

'Me?'

'I'd ask John, but, well. You understand. John was never thrilled to assist me _before_, and whenever he did it was out of some misplaced affection for my brother, not because he wished to please _me_. After our last encounter, I doubt very much he'd be interested in helping me now. More importantly, however, he's in no position—physically or mentally—to do any looking after. By some strange twist of fate, Sherlock is looking after _him_. Likely, this will be a disaster. He doesn't have the instinct of a caregiver. Again, I call upon _you_. You're nicely situated as their friend and colleague.'

'You don't need to bribe me to be their friend, you know,' he said, indicating the envelope.

'That's not bribery. That's an assignment. The more players we have, the more likely we are to take down this monstrosity Moriarty raised up. Like I said, few can be trusted, so it's up to us. Learn what you can, and pass it along to Sherlock. He will need every scrap of information he can get. And keep me apprised of what he does with it.'

'Why don't you give this to him yourself?'

'Take my word for it—it is better that Sherlock not know I have my hand in it.' He set aside the snifter. 'Now. Tonight. I have a task for you. Inside that envelope you'll find a password for—'

'Oh no. Sorry. No.'

Mycroft raised an imperious eyebrow, expressing his displeasure at being refused, a thing to which he was not greatly accustomed.

'That is, not tonight. Tonight, I . . . am occupied.'

At this, Mycroft had the audacity to smirk. 'Ah yes. Your _rendezvous_ with Ms Hooper. Not to worry. I can arrange for the lady friend to be otherwise engaged.'

'No!' Lestrade shouted. He reddened considerably at his own intense reaction. But, he reasoned, it wasn't _entirely _unjustified. Since moving her into her new flat, Lestrade had seen Molly very seldom. Changes in the Yard and the ongoing investigation into Sebastian Moran had occupied nearly every minute of his day, precluding them from going on what might be considered a proper date. Instead, they had been maintaining contact through text messages like two bashful teenagers. Tonight, he finally had a couple of hours to do with as he pleased, and consequences be damned if he was about to let Mycroft Holmes spoil them.

Trying to recover himself, he stood and straightened his coat, working a crick out of his neck. 'I mean'—how the hell did Mycroft even _know_ he had plans with Molly?—'don't bother. This evening, I am unavailable. Simple as that.'

'Very well. Tomorrow then. You'll familiarise yourself with the contents of that envelope. Memorise everything, and then destroy it. I trust we're clear on this?'

'You would be better served putting your faith in Sherlock directly,' said Lestrade, though he slid the envelope into his coat, accepting what Mycroft was offering. 'Compared to him, I'm a rather shoddy detective.'

'Compared to him, yes,' Mycroft agreed tactlessly, 'but then, isn't everyone? Nevertheless, you've proven yourself in more ways than you may realise, detective inspector. I do not call upon you lightly, nor with a moment's hesitation. Acquaint yourself with the files I have given you. After, we'll talk again.'

* * *

In the stillness of 221B Baker Street, Sherlock drew the bow down the E-string of his violin, the only thing Mycroft had claimed during his absence and then returned. As his fingers crawled up the string, released it, then climbed again, the sweet strain resonated throughout the flat. Moments later, just as he had predicted, John appeared in the room, pale, his hair and clothing dishevelled, and a little shaken. Sherlock pretended not to notice, only continued the soothing melody. Soon, John had crossed the room, set aside the cane, and lowered himself gently into his chair.

The sound of the violin was one of two things that had the power to draw John out of a bad dream. At night, apparently unwilling to be alone in the darkness of his room, he remained in the sitting room, lying on the couch or resting in his chair. Sherlock retreated to his own room to feign sleep, but he left the door open and spent the night listening for signs that John was having another nightmare, at which point he arose and coaxed John to wakefulness with calming, steadying words. During the day, however, John withdrew to his own sparsely furnished but well-lit room, spending many of the daylight hours sleeping. Sherlock listened for signs then, too, that another bad dream had encroached. Sometimes it was the sound of constantly shifting blankets, laboured breathing, or, worst of all, weeping. And when he heard it, he grabbed the violin—always at hand, bow always rosined with horsehairs drawn taut—and began to play.

Those first few weeks back on Baker Street, John suffered nightmares and intrusive images regularly, day and night, and Sherlock was now well practiced at guiding him out of them. Lately, though, they had ebbed to only four or five times a week, and Sherlock was optimistic that, over time, that number would continue to decline, though he didn't know how realistic it was to hope that he would ever be rid of them entirely.

Nevertheless, when it came to John's physical and mental wellbeing, Sherlock was vigilant. It was unlikely that John realised just how closely he was being watched, day to day, hour to hour. Every morning, Sherlock counted John's pills (oxycodone, those first ten days out of hospital, though now he was on amitryptiline and tramadol), which were kept in the cabinet above the bathroom sink, just to make sure he was taking them. When he didn't, Sherlock served them to him wordlessly at his chair with a glass of water or set them by his dinner plate. John never refused them, then, and even let Sherlock watch him swallow them. But he never commented on why he hadn't take them himself, nor on Sherlock's taking it upon himself to administer them.

He also monitored John's eating habits. John usually slept through the decent breakfast hours, but they took lunch and dinner together nearly every day. This was forcing Sherlock to eat more consistently than he was accustomed to doing, but he was pleased to see John slowly regaining the weight he had lost. His face seemed less gaunt, his shoulders less shrunken. He had taken to drinking water like a man still dehydrated; but still, he ate lightly, not often finishing a full meal. It was a far cry from the John Watson he had known before, the one who had relished mealtimes and ate with vigour. But at least he was eating.

Because John didn't like to leave the flat and didn't like it when Sherlock left him there (he never said as much, but Sherlock knew), they came to rely on Mrs Hudson to do the shopping. They never actually asked her to. One day, she just showed up, arms laden with sacks of food. As she rummaged around their kitchen, throwing away old milk and replacing it with a fresh carton, she prattled on about the failings of the previous tenants, the dismal December weather, Mrs Turner's health problems, and her decision to switch hairdressers. Her carryings-on had never been more welcome, and it soon became a daily custom for her to sit afternoon tea with them. She did most of the talking and John the least, but Sherlock didn't fail to see how John watched her with fondness, something close to a smile on his face. It was well warranted. Mrs Hudson was, after all, one of the few things John hadn't lost while Sherlock had been dead.

John had also taken to long bouts in the bathroom with the shower running, sometimes as many as four a day. But Sherlock knew he wasn't actually showering: The hot water never ran out, so he must have been running it cold; it was the sound of water hitting the shower floor, not a body standing in the path of the stream; and the towels were never damp when John emerged, still fully dressed; only a single flannel had been used. From what Sherlock could observe, John used the time in the bathroom to change his bandages or give himself a spot cleaning—one day his face and neck, another day his arms, perhaps, or his legs—never fully undressing. At least, not enough to take a proper shower. The shrink had not diagnosed it, but Sherlock wondered whether this were a sign of gymnophobia, a fear of being naked, exposed, even when he was not being observed. Apparently, the anxiety meds weren't helping with this.

Following John's lead of silence about his condition, Sherlock didn't ask. But he did notice how careful John was in covering his skin and button his shirts to the collar, so Sherlock hadn't seen the state of most of his injuries since Barts, and he hadn't seen his back since the convent. Only his head injuries were visible, and his wrists. John had removed the bandages only recently, and though he was usually attentive enough to keep them hidden beneath the cuffs of his shirts, Sherlock had caught a few glimpses of the scar tissue, a mean red line indenting the skin and looping halfway around each wrist. It looked painful, but John didn't complain, even if he was particularly mindful of how he bent them. He was mindful of all his movements, actually, and moved slowly.

_Slow_ had become the rhythm of 221B. Slow, and quiet, and solemn. So Sherlock played in harmony. And behind him, as the choking grip of his latest bad dream loosened its hold, John's eyes grew heavy, and he slipped into a dream without visions at all, only music, a violin singing.

* * *

Then one day in mid-December, everything changed.

Sherlock sat perched on a stool at the kitchen table, peering through the lenses of his new microscope. Mrs Hudson had donated all of his old chemistry supplies to a school (he had to reassure her repeatedly that he didn't mind), so he was slowly rebuilding his collection. First on the list had been the microscope and a set of beakers and Petri dishes. He was examining the microscopic effects of ammonia against pig skin at varying durations of exposure—just the tiniest samplings of both, neither pungent enough to attract John's notice.

As for John, he sat in his chair, reading the morning paper. It was as close to normal as they ever got, the standard for _normal_ being a day three-and-a-half years now gone.

Suddenly, John closed the paper and threw it to the floor with a short puff of exasperated breath. Sherlock lifted his head to see the backside of John's was shaking slightly back and forth. His chin rested in his hand, which was propped on the armrest.

'Everything all ri—?'

'Fine,' said John. But he grabbed his cane and pushed himself to his feet. Sherlock half expected him to leave for his bedroom or remove himself to the couch, somewhere out of Sherlock's line of sight. Instead, he hobbled into the kitchen. He banged about in the cupboards, first for a mug, which he filled with water from the tap, then for a plate, bread, butter, the toaster. Something had upset him, but he seemed in no mood to discuss it, though he was making quite a raucous job of preparing toast.

For a second or two, Sherlock debated whether to offer help. He could brew a fair pot of tea, after all. But John was blocking the electric kettle, and his body language didn't invite pitying acts of service. So Sherlock pushed aside the microscope and grabbed another Petri dish containing another sample.

He was just turning the small sample of skin over with a pair of tweezers, getting ready to prepare another slide, when he felt John still behind him. Then, unexpectedly, John grabbed the back of his head and pushed it down, bowing him at the neck to expose the skin between dressing gown and hairline, and held it there.

The hand was firm, insistent, and unapologetic, but Sherlock made no protest in either word or action. His hand holding the tweezers froze, suspended in midair; the other splayed on the bare bit of tabletop. The seconds ticked by, and Sherlock wondered what was going on. Then, equally unexpected, he felt a finger run lightly down the long scar on the side of his neck, a finger as gentle as the hand was rough, the finger of a man who knew how sensitive to touch the healed skin of a scar could be.

'This looks like a bullet wound,' said John, his voice equal parts gruffness and softness.

'You would know,' said Sherlock.

'It's not that old, though. A year?'

'Spot on, John. I always knew you were good.'

'But this isn't the mark of a handgun. Assault rifle?'

'Yes, probably. Though I wouldn't trust myself to answer with great accuracy. I was rather poorly at the time.'

John's hands withdrew. He limped around to the other side of the table and sat. 'Tell me.'

Taking a deep breath, Sherlock set aside the tweezers and Petri dish. When he had told John of his activities in the greater world, that day in the hospital, he had stopped, rather abruptly, after disclosing the terrible mistake he had made with respect to Irene Adler. And yet, that had left more than two years of his time unaccounted for. It was a nearly twenty-six-month stretch he considered largely inconsequential, and rather bleak at that. He disliked recalling it. But John was asking, and he wouldn't decline to answer.

He began by explaining how Ms Adler had planted the hand-chased silver bracelet on him, leading to his arrest and imprisonment in Libya. Initially, he thought to paint those months with a wide brush and a single stroke, but John wanted details, so he supplied. He talked about how maddening it had been, locked away in that tiny cell for days and weeks on end without the hope of mental stimulation, how uninspired (and later, how infrequent) each meal had been, how rarely one was allowed to bathe. He talked about the violence of the prisoners and the prison guards both, and how he had often been a target of their wrath. He talked about the mistakes he had made in there, too, and the consequences of being himself. Why this was all suddenly so important to John, he couldn't discern. Was it a comfort to hear of another's suffering? Did a sense of vindictiveness give him satisfaction to hear that Sherlock had known some measure of misery, too? But by Sherlock's measuring, his own pain paled considerably when set next to John's, and he would never pretend otherwise.

He brought the narrative through his escape and to the road to Tripoli. He described the ambush that had led to eleven dead men and a bullet slicing across his neck in place of a proper execution. Even then, he had almost died in the Libyan Desert from dehydration and blood loss, surviving only on account of the American soldiers who had found him on the roadside.

'I've been meaning to send the captain a thank you card,' said Sherlock, attempting to lighten the mood. When John didn't crack a smile, he proceeded with his sojourn to Tripoli and north again into Europe, looping south until he had arrived at last in Cairo.

'You arrived then . . .'

'In June. Six months ago. And I didn't leave until Molly texted. By then, I was . . . lost. I had lost my purpose. All my efforts to undo Moriarty's work had proven pointless. I was ineffective, worthless. I couldn't do it on my own.'

John nodded, running a finger absentmindedly around the rim of a beaker. 'Well. That's _always_ been your problem, hasn't it?'

Sherlock saw the look of disappointment on John's face. It stung like a wasp. 'This isn't over, John. I promise you. Moriarty's _game_? I'm not done playing.' John's eyes snapped up and bored into him. 'And I'll be better, better than Ms Adler, better than anyone. I can do it. I'll find them, all of them. I'll find the linchpin that holds the network together, and destroy it. Whether it be Adler or Moran or someone else. I swear to you, if it takes the rest of my life, I will make every one of them pay for all they have done.'

'No,' said John. '_We_ will.'

Sherlock's shoulders sagged. 'John—'

'Don't you say it, Holmes. Don't you tell me that this is just between you and _that woman_, or that this is all some grand chessboard and that you can simply outmanoeuvre her. Don't pretend this is some sort of _game_ with two players and a world full of pawns. I'm _not_ a pawn. Don't treat me like one.'

'I know you're not.'

'Then don't _talk_ about all this as if I'm not a player.'

'I can't—' Sherlock fought to steady his voice. 'I can't ask you to put yourself in harm's way again.'

'Why the hell not?'

Sherlock blinked, stunned. 'After all you've suffered already, John, it's not fair.'

'Fair,' John echoed, as if the word were bitter on his tongue.

'You deserve to be happy.'

'_Happy?_' Never had the word been spoken with such derision. John crossed his arms and regarded him severely from across the table. 'Why should I want to be happy? Let me tell you something, Sherlock. I remember a morning, almost four years ago now, when I woke up feeling exactly that. Happy. Things were good. _Life_ was good. I was at peace with myself and with the world, and I wanted for nothing more. That morning, I indulged in a long, hot shower—you know how I never took long showers—and felt no rush to get on with my day because I was _happy_ with things, just as they were. So I lazed about the flat in my dressing gown, my slippers. Made coffee. Read the morning paper. Hummed to myself a little, not knowing that _any second now_ he would text you, and everything would go to hell. But in that moment, that bright and fleeting moment, everything was good. I felt _happy_. I didn't feel that again until'—he swallowed—'until the morning I decided to go out and buy a ring.' His voice caught, but he fought through it. 'I hope to never feel that again. I know what happens next.'

Sherlock felt his eyes burning, but John was staring at him with such gravitas, such determination, that he dared not look away and could scarcely blink.

'So fine. Go on. Play your game, if that's what pleases you. That's what you _do_. Me? I'm going to war, because that's what _I_ do.'

Angry, he pushed back the chair and planted his hands on the table, pushing himself up into a standing position. Sherlock reacted then. An arm lunged across the table grabbed John's wrist to keep him from walking away. John flinched, and Sherlock felt the wire-thin scar quiver beneath his fingertips, but he didn't let go.

'I almost'—it hurt to be so bare, and his mouth was small as he spoke—'lost you.'

'Yeah? Well, I _did_ lose you.' He shook his head in irritation. 'Sherlock, you git. I lost you, and it hurt like hell. Every day. Even the days when it didn't.'

Slowly, he sank back down, and Sherlock released his arm.

'I know,' he said. 'And I mean to make recompense for that. And for . . . everything else, besides. So I won't let them take you again, John. They still want you, but I can't let them take you.'

'And they want you dead. I'm not going through that again. I'm not.'

Sherlock shook his head mournfully. 'You shouldn't have to. I'm sorry. I never meant for you to be thrust into the heart of my battle.'

'This isn't _your_ battle. It's ours. It's a burden we share. As much as you hate to think it, I'm in it as deep as you are. _I_ have stake in it, too—you, her—so don't imagine for a second that you can handle it on your own.' He ran a hand across his face. 'You should have taken me with you, Sherlock. I would have gone with you. We could have faked my death as well and gone on into the fray _together_. You tell me you were ineffectual as if you wonder why, but isn't it obvious? You _needed_ me, and don't say you didn't. And you need me now. I'm not backing out. I can't. I won't. I'm not your PA, and I'm not your damn sidekick, Sherlock. I'm your _partner_. So here's how it's going to work: You fall, I catch. I stumble, you balance. When it rains, it rains on us both. And if the sun comes out again, it shines on us both. Good, bad, worse, it's you and me. Got it?'

Sherlock frowned. 'What did you read in the paper, John?'

The fire of his anger illuminated John's eyes, and Sherlock felt a thrill of fear drag slowly up his spine. 'A plea agreement,' John said. 'Everett Stubbins pled guilty as an accessory to kidnapping and won't file suit against the Met for endangerment while in custody. In exchange, prosecutors will drop the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. He's done answering questions. He'll never stand trial. He'll serve five to ten years, and that'll be that.'

Sherlock's eyes narrowed in consternation. 'Craven prosecutors,' he said.

'He won't even serve time for the death of Frank Vander Maten. That's been pinned to some tossers named Burch and Moore. But that's all they've been charged with. That _all_.'

'I know. Lestrade. He was spitting fire when he told me.'

'They killed her, Sherlock. Every one of them. And it's like no one cares. Like no one even remembers.' He closed his eyes, as though remembering, breathing shaky breaths, and for a moment, Sherlock thought he might slip away, back to the convent; he opened his mouth, ready to bring him back, but he didn't need to: John was still with him. 'He's still out there. I know he's dangerous. I know what he's capable of. Better than anyone. But I need to be part of this.'

'It's big, John. What Jim Moriarty raised up, it's bigger than Moran.'

'I know.'

'Bigger than either of us can comprehend. I was only beginning to understand just how big, before I was caught in the web and thrown into a prison cell. Taking it down won't be easy. If we do this . . .' He took a steadying breath and leaned into the table. 'If we do this, it may very well take us the rest of our lives.'

'Yes.'

'It may very well _take_ our lives.'

John was unfazed. 'Good, bad, or worse,' he repeated. 'It's you and me.'

At last, Sherlock nodded his agreement.

* * *

That same evening, John sat in his chair with the laptop open in front of him, scrolling through Yard files that Sherlock had unabashedly hacked into while the latter paced the floor, relaying all the information on James Moriarty's network he had gathered over the past three year, his tongue working rapidly in a noble effort to keep up with his brain.

When he crossed again to the window and looked out, however, his mouth fell closed. John's hands stilled on the keys and his head rose, waiting.

The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched and his tone changed from the hum of a motor to a note of intrigue.

'There's been a murder,' he said with interest.

Out on the pavement, DI Lestrade was striding up to the door. Next second, the quick _zzz-zzz_ of the bell.

'Evening,' said Lestrade once he had achieved the first storey, having been let in by Mrs Hudson. He swung his car keys around one finger, a behaviour that suggested a deliberately casual manner, which really implied that this was no casual visit at all. 'You boys keeping warm up here? They say this winter's going to be a nasty one. How's Sherlock's tea, John?'

'Too much sugar,' John said.

'Where is it?' said Sherlock, cutting through the trifle.

'Where's what?'

'Oh please, you want us to believe that this is a social visit? You've left the car running and Sgt Donovan in the passenger seat. Looking rather huffy, I should say. Where's the body?'

Lestrade sighed and conceded. 'West End,' he said, taking a seat on the couch and leaning forward, elbows on knees, still bouncing his car keys in one hand. 'The Queen's Theatre. Chorus boy was found dead in a dressing room. Hadn't been working there even a month, so not a lot of time to make enemies. His head was bashed in from behind, but there's almost no blood, no weapon, and the door was slide-locked from the inside. Place is covered in makeup and powder, but forensics can't find a single print, if you can believe it.'

'I can.' His mind was already turning.

Lestrade shrugged a little pathetically. 'We're questioning other cast members, tech crew, anyone that may have seen or heard something, but so far, we don't have much. If I showed you some pictures . . .'

But Sherlock had already grabbed his coat off the back of the chair and was fitting a scarf around his neck.

'Whoa, whoa, hold up, Sherlock. I'm just here to, you know, toss around some ideas. I can give you the details of it, but you know I can't take you to the crime scene.'

'We'll follow behind,' said Sherlock.

John was now pushing himself out of the chair, knuckles white around the grip of his aluminium cane.

'Seriously, Sherlock,' Lestrade protested.

Sherlock tossed John his coat.

Now Lestrade appeared truly regretful that he had come. 'John,' he said softly, 'maybe you shouldn't—'

'I'm coming,' said John.

'He's coming,' said Sherlock in the same moment. Then, to deflect Lestrade's attention away from John, he said, 'A bit soon to be asking Molly to move in, isn't it, Lestrade?'

Lestrade blanched, though a moment later his cheeks went fiery red. He had never mentioned to Sherlock that he and Molly Hooper had begun to see one another, though by his look he was now wondering whether Molly had. She hadn't. But the signs were obvious.

'Two identical house keys on your key ring,' said Sherlock. 'One dull and scuffed from years of use, the other still shining. It was cut recently. Not today, you haven't had time. Yesterday, perhaps. If it were a spare, you would have left it at home—hopefully not under the brick this time, _Greg_, that's far too obvious—so a gift it is. I'd be flattered, but it's clearly not for me because you know very well I never returned the last one. And there's no point in giving it to John. I've already made him a copy.'

'You didn't know?' said John. He sighed, then, to Sherlock, 'You told me he practically insisted.'

'I told you he wouldn't have it any other way.' Then he turned and regarded Lestrade with an air of challenge, and Lestrade answered with a sigh to match John's. 'Of course I don't mind,' he said.

'Bugger,' said John under his breath.

'So someone else then. Now, who _else _might be so privileged as to warrant a key to your house?' Sherlock leaned forward and quickly sniffed Lestrade's neck. Lestrade recoild from the uninvited intimacy. 'Cologne. On your way to the scene of a murder, and you decide that a little _eau de Cologne_ is called for? I think not. You're seeing someone tonight—assuming you can wrap this up quickly, which is why you came to _me_—and who could it be? Surely not the girl with whom you've been swapping significant looks from opposite sides of a morgue (you've smelled of formaldehyde more than usual, so you'll want to ask Molly about her tricks for covering up the scent), the very girl you've been texting incessantly since the end of October (your texting speed, by the way, has improved by twenty-two characters a minute as a result).' He paused, allowing for a beat, a rhetorical suspension of sound to give greater impact to his deductions, then finished, 'Am I wrong?'

By this time, Lestrade had recovered a modicum of dignity. He squared his shoulders, saying, 'In one thing, yes. I'm _not_ asking her to move in. The key is for security purposes, _her own_, should she ever need it. So yes, you are wrong, in fact.'

'Well,' said Sherlock, smiling subtly at John, 'there's always something.'

'And in any case, it's none of your bloody business, Holmes. Now are you coming or not?'

He spun on his heel and left through the open door. Sherlock pulled a pair of leather gloves out of his coat pocket, and as he fitted them and passed through the door, he heard John behind him, whispering to himself.

'Brilliant.'


	31. Chapter 31: Appendices

**APPENDICES**

The story _Ten Days_ is now concluded. I began drafting it in May of 2012 and posting to FFN on November 2. It has been an overwhelming but immensely satisfying project, and the support from online readers has been both touching and encouraging. While I don't think I would have lost interest in the story, it was knowing that I had a small but devoted readership that drove me toward completion within six months, a 130,000-word feat I would never have imagined I was capable of accomplishing, so I thank you.

What follows is not part of the story but appendices related thereto:

_Appendix A:_ Timeline succeeding Sherlock's fall

_Appendix B:_ Timeline of _Ten Days_

_Appendix C:_ Preview to Book II

_Appendix D:_ Acknowledgements

The inclusion of this information is, in part, vanity (what writing isn't?), but it's mostly for the benefit of the interested reader. I am not offended if people choose to ignore it.

**Appendix A: Timeline Succeeding the Fall**

The BBC _Sherlock_ timeline is notoriously messy (read: inconsistent), as anyone who has taken the trouble to chart it has noticed. But I do appreciate their efforts! I chose to base my own timeline on AO3 writer lyrical_sky's 'Meta: BBC Sherlock Timeline of Series 1 and 2' (which can be found here: /works/322321), which places Sherlock's fake suicide on June 15, 2011.

Any errors or inconsistencies in the consequent timeline I provide here I consider in keeping with the canonical messiness. :)

**First Year**

_June 2011_  
15th Sherlock fakes his death and leaves London  
16th John blogs, "He was my best friend, and I'll always believe him."  
18th John begs Sherlock not to be dead; Molly drives Sherlock to Portsmouth where he becomes Roger Borniche  
20th Mycroft comes to 221B, and John ejects him; later that day, he deletes Mycroft's number from his phone

_July 2011_  
Roger Borniche disappears; Gustav Höcker materialises in Nürnberg  
John deletes Lestrade's number from his phone

_August 2011_  
Höcker arrives in Leipzig; later, Berlin; later, Poznan

_September 2011_  
Höcker arrives in Lodzo; later, Warsaw  
John quits going to therapy

_October 2011_  
Höcker arrives in Baranavichy, Belarus; he disappears  
John tries to reenlist and is rejected for psychological reasons

_November 2011 _  
John gets hired on at St Elizabeth's

_December 2011_  
Erast Fandorin materialises and journeys further eastward  
Irene Adler arrives in Libya

_January 2012  
_Fandorin skirts Moscow to the south

_February 2012_  
13th While intoxicated, Harry Watson crashes her car and dies on impact

_March 2012 _  
Sherlock (under pseudonym) arrives in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; later, Islamabad, Pakistan; later, Maharastra, India

_April 2012 _  
Sherlock arrives in Jakarta, Indonesia; later, East Timor

_May 2012 _  
Sherlock arrives in Kyoto, Japan

**Second Year**

_June 2012 _  
Sherlock arrives in Perth, Australia; later, Port Elizabeth

_July 2012_  
Sherlock arrives in Luanda, Angola; later, Lagos, Nigeria; he assumes the name Harun ibn Yahya

_August 2012  
_19th Sherlock encounters and subsequently snubs Irene Adler in Sabha, Libya; he is arrested sentenced to 30 months for petty thievery

_September 2012_

_October 2012_

_November 2012_

_December 2012_

_January 2013_  
21st Mike Stamford dies of a heart attack on the floor of a pub, despite John's best efforts to save him

_February 2013_

_March 2013_

_April 2013_

_May 2013_

**Third Year**

_June 2013_

_July 2013_

_August 2013_  
4th Mary Morstan goes to St E's for a consultation with John Watson and reveals that she needs a PI; he agrees to help her  
11th The case solved, John invites Mary to join him for coffee

_September 2013_

_October 2013_

_November 2013_

_December 2013 _  
23rd Sherlock escapes from the Libyan prison  
26th En route to Tripoli, the travelling lorry is ambushed; Sherlock is shot across the side of the neck  
27th Sherlock awakes in a U.S. Army base where he is treated for his injuries

_January 2014 _  
8th Sherlock continues on toward Tripoli  
10th Irene learns that Sherlock has escaped  
16th Sherlock arrives in Malta  
21st Sherlock arrives in Ragusa, Italy; later, Messina; later, Catanzaro

_February 2014 _  
Sherlock arrives in Bari, Italy; later, Montenegro

_March 2014 _  
Sherlock arrives in Albania; later, Greece  
Irene encounters Sebastian Moran in Macedonia and tells him Sherlock is alive: 'You want to get to Sherlock? Go through John.'  
John moves into 116 Porters Avenue, flat 2A

_April 2014 _  
Sherlock arrives in Turkey; later, Syria

_May 2014 _  
Sherlock arrives in Lebanon; later, Israel  
Under instruction from Sebastian Moran, Everett Stubbins and other Yard officers/turncoats begin to track John Watson's movements

**Fourth Year**

_June 2014 _  
Sherlock arrives in Cairo, Egypt, and rests; he has been dead for 36 months

_July 2014_

_August 2014_

_September 2014_

_October 2014  
_13th Frank Vander Maten is murdered  
15th John leaves the flat, intending to purchase an engagement ring

**[See Appendix B for full October timeline]**

_November 2014 _  
John checks himself out of St Barts  
Chief Superintendent Pitts is arrested, then assassinated  
John returns to Baker Street

_December 2014 _  
Mycroft recruits Lestrade to work for him  
Sherlock and John make plans to take down Moriarty's network together

_January 2015 _  
The Slash Man strikes again

_February 2015_

_March 2015_  
19th When Sherlock's prison sentence is supposed to have ended

**Appendix B: Timeline of ****_Ten Days_**

This timeline begins with the start of _Ten Days_, October 15, 2014, or exactly forty months after Sherlock's fall. It concludes on Day 12 of events, when the hour-by-hour format is no longer imperative to the storytelling. The story's narrative itself is nonlinear, fragmented, and expansive, so this timeline serves the dual purpose of presenting the sequence of events in a linear fashion and in a condensed format.

**October 15, 2014  
Day 1, Wednesday**

**16.39** John chooses a ring for Mary at Grant & Chapman's**  
16.51 **John runs his credit card**  
17.05** John's last text message to Mary  
**18.05** John arrives at the convent and meets Sebastian Moran  
**22.02** John receives the first IOU

**October 16, 2014  
Day 2, Thursday**

**06.30** John misses his morning date with Mary  
**06.39** Mary texts John, wondering where he is  
**07.05** Mary texts that she has to go to work  
**10.20** Mary texts, asking him to call her at work  
**12.15** Mary texts that she called St E's  
**16.00** Moran returns to continue his 'interrogation'; Mary texts John one more time, announcing that she is going to call the police  
**22.05** John receives the second IOU

**October 17, 2014  
Day 3, Friday**

**09.23 **Lestrade learns that John Watson is a missing person  
**09.27** Lestrade texts John  
**11.21** Moran performs drowning torture on John  
**14.29 **Moran cuts John's feet  
**21.48** John receives the third IOU

**October 18, 2014  
Day 4, Saturday**

**15.17** Lestrade visits Mary Morstan  
**16.49** Lestrade questions the shopkeeper at Grant & Chapman's  
**18.12** Donovan calls Lestrade and tells him to get to Barts  
**18.44** Lestrade arrives at St Barts and sees Molly for the first time in years  
**19.11** Molly texts Sherlock in Cairo  
**22.00** John receives the fourth IOU  
**23.35** Sherlock boards a plane for London

**October 19, 2014**  
**Day 5, Sunday**

**04.48** Sherlock lands in Heathrow; he goes straight to Lestrade's house  
**06.38** Sherlock breaks into Lestrade's house, showers, shaves, raids the wardrobe for fresh clothes  
**17.24** Moran gives John tinned tomatoes and water and locks him in the freezer  
**22.27** John receives the fifth IOU  
**23.11** Lestrade comes home to find Sherlock in his living room

**October 20, 2014  
Day 6, Monday**

**00.17** Lestrade calls Mary; she doesn't answer**  
00.27** Sherlock and Lestrade drive to Mary's flat and find her missing  
**00.35** Sherlock places the 999 call  
**00.42** The first police officers arrive at Mary's flat in response to the call  
**01.13** Sherlock and Lestrade return to Lestrade's house  
**04.56** Anderson and his forensics team arrive at the scene  
**05.46** John wakes up in the freezer; they bring Mary to see him  
**06.48** Lestrade finds Sherlock still working on his computer; Sherlock tells him there is a mole in Scotland Yard  
**15.14** Anderson calls Donovan about Sherlock's fingerprints being found in Mary's flat  
**18.17** Mary is sent in to talk to John; they cut off her finger  
**20.21** John receives his sixth IOU and Mary loses another finger  
**23.01** Mary is killed

**October 21, 2014  
Day 7, Tuesday**

**07.11** Donovan confronts Lestrade about being in Mary's flat  
**10.31** John finds himself in the freezer all day with Mary's body; Moran plans  
**13.29** Lestrade receives a call from Mycroft  
**14.12** Lestrade meets Mycroft in the Stranger's Room of the Diogenes Club  
**22.10** John receives his seventh IOU; Moran snaps a photo with John's phone  
**23.49** Mary's body is removed from the convent

**October 22, 2014  
Day 8, Wednesday**

**11.04** Lestrade and Sherlock meet at the Three Harts  
**11.16** Lestrade gets a call; Mary's body has been dumped at 221B Baker Street  
**11.49** Lestrade speaks to a distraught Mrs Hudson  
**18.22** Sherlock examines Mary's body; Lestrade receives pics of John on his phone  
**21.37** Moran affixes a cilice onto John's leg  
**23.12** Daz rapes John while Moran records it on John's phone  
**23.34** John receives his eighth IOU

**October 23, 2014  
Day 9, Thursday**

**09.15** Lestrade debriefs Donovan and Anderson  
**09.41** Lestrade meets Molly at Barts  
**09.43** Sherlock makes deductions based on the photos  
**09.51** Lestrade receives the vid and plants a tracker in Sherlock's coat  
**12.07 **Everett Stubbins asks Donovan questions about Lestrade that fuel her suspicions**  
13.04** Mycroft arrives at Scotland Yard to badger Lestrade  
**14.13** Sherlock interviews a homeless man about shoes  
**14.51** Donovan talks to Pitts about suspending Lestrade  
**15.22** Lestrade is put on notice that he is a suspect; his phone and laptop are confiscated  
**15.28** Sherlock learns about the Slash Man  
**16.26** Lestrade texts both Mycroft and Sherlock  
**18.40** Sherlock meets victims of the Slash Man  
**20.02** Mycroft and Sherlock exchange texts, believing they are each texting Lestrade  
**22.17** John receives his ninth IOU; Moran forces him to perform fellatio and rapes him before giving him over to Daz once more

**October 24, 2014  
Day 10, Friday**

**07.34** Donovan and Anderson convince Pitts to arrest Lestrade  
**08.01** Lestrade rings Molly's bell and asks for her help  
**11.20** Sherlock and Mycroft exchange texts regarding Peter and Lex  
**12.00** Lestrade phones Molly at the arranged hour  
**12.39** John hallucinates about those he has lost  
**13.02** Sherlock arrives at the rendezvous with Lestrade but finds Mycroft; he hides  
**13.12** Lestrade is arrested outside an abandoned hardware store  
**13.27** Mycroft receives reports on various assassins from his team  
**14.00** Molly waits for Lestrade's call; she meets Mary's sister  
**14.15** Molly texts Sherlock and Mycroft to tell them that Lestrade's been arrested  
**14.36** Lestrade is interrogated at New Scotland Yard  
**15.14** Sherlock returns to Lestrade's to sleep and remembers the last three years  
**18.27** Sherlock wakes up  
**18.28** Moran taunts John about Sherlock  
**18.44** Sherlock puts together clues about light bulbs, demolition, and hacking  
**20.58** Donovan tells Pitts that Lestrade is to be transferred  
**21.09** Lestrade is released into government custody; Donovan names the mole  
**21.16** Moran and Lex continue to torture John; they plan Lestrade's demise  
**21.31** Lestrade texts Sherlock on Mycroft's phone  
**21.38** Sherlock arrives at the convent and turns off his phone  
**21.44** Lestrade tells Mycroft about Arthur Doyle; a car crashes into them  
**22.03** Sherlock enters the convent and makes his way to the kitchen  
**22.08** Lestrade phones Molly and tells her to turn on the GPS and guide him  
**22.12** Sherlock tasers Lex; he finds John unconscious in the freezer  
**22.18** Mycroft distracts O'Higgins  
**22.20** Lestrade is getting closer to the convent  
**22.22** Sherlock carries John from the freezer; Moran finds him  
**22.23** Sherlock and Moran's tense conversation  
**22.26** Gunshots above and below  
**22.27** Lestrade, following Sherlock's tracker, finds John half dead  
**22.28** Irene saves Sherlock from Moran, but only as part of the game  
**23.02** Lestrade and Donovan talk at the crime scene

**October 25, 2014  
Day 11, Saturday**

**03.23** Lestrade talks to Sherlock outside St Barts  
**03.41** Molly stitches Sherlock up  
**03.53 **Sherlock goes to see John in his hospital bed  
**04.14** Sherlock is reunited with Mycroft  
**08.12** Sherlock is reunited with Mrs Hudson  
**10.17** Lestrade interrogates Stubbins  
**10.24** Sherlock sits tea with Mrs Hudson, later with Mycroft

**October 26, 2014  
Day 12, Sunday**

**16.02** John wakes up, alone  
**16.24** John discovers Sherlock is alive

**Appendix C: Preview to Book II**

Book II (currently untitled, as I generally withhold titling my work until I have written the majority of the story) is in the works! There is so much more story that needs to be told, as readers have been kind enough to (repeatedly) point out. Will Moran get what's coming to him? What did Irene mean by 'anniversary'? Is John still in danger? How will Sherlock and John rebuild their friendship? Will Lestrade and Molly ever (wink wink wolf whistle)?

Please continue reading the next case fic in the series, in which

Sherlock gets his groove back, but other aspects of himself take a hit (or three)  
John is an angry, reckless BAMF  
Lestrade receives messages on his phone from 'Watson'  
Mycroft's plans backfire  
Molly discharges Lestrade's weapon  
Donovan does something very unDonovanly  
Anderson is an utter twit  
Kitty Riley is the devil's errand girl  
Henry Knight makes a reappearance  
Mrs Hudson is all kinds of wonderful  
Traitors come in an unexpected form

At this time, I do not want to give away much of the plot, but I can assure readers that it will be a natural progression from _Ten Days_, growing out of the events and traumas first presented there. Readers can expect similar content warnings and a fair amount of angst (I guess that's just the kind of writer I am), but also some lighter moments, more humour, and the rebuilding of a friendship that has suffered its share of severe blows.

At their heart, the ACD Sherlock stories are detective stories, and so mine are, too. I think both plot and character are essential to telling a good story, so I always strive to give equal importance to both, as neither is as compelling on its own. If plot is the mind, then character is the heart, and, like Sherlock and John, they are two halves of a whole.

**Appendix D: Acknowledgements**

I would first like to acknowledge the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose work has inspired generations of readers and writers alike over the course of more than a hundred years. His Holmes and Watson are timeless and transcend borders, languages, and cultures, which really is a remarkable thing.

I'd also like to acknowledge and thank BBC creators and writers Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and Stephen Thompson for bringing Sherlock into the 21st century. I can't praise their work (and the work of BBC producers, directors, cinematographers, casting directors, costume and set designers, and musical composers) enough. That's to say nothing of the superb talents of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, who have brought Sherlock and John to life in such an unforgettable and delightful way.

Finally, I'd like to thank every single reader, for your questions, comments, and reviews (a special thanks to Paradoxical Paradigm on that regard), and for sharing the story with your friends. Your support has meant the world to me. The Sherlock fandom is outstanding, composed of wonderful and talented human beings. I have enjoyed reading your own fics whenever I needed a break or a breather from my own. I feel privileged that I have been able to contribute, in however small a way, to the sprawling collection from writers around the world.

My best to you all.


End file.
